/-^KRVCfPRINCf^^. 


BS580  .R8T2 

Taylor,  Williani  M.  (William  Mackergo). 

1829-1895. 

Ruth  Ihe  deaner  and  Esther  Ihe  uueen. 


RUTH  THE   GLEANER 


AND 


ESTHER  THE  QUEEN 


WILLIAM  M.  TAYLOR,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

PASTOR   OF   BROADWAY  TABERNACLE,  NEW   YORK 
AUTHOR  OF   "  DAVID,  KING  OF  ISRAEL  "   ETC 


NEW    YORK 

HARPER  &   BROTHERS,  FRANKLIN  SQUARE 

1891 


Br  THE  REV.  DR.  WM.  M.  TAYLOR. 


DANIEL  THE  BELOVED. 
•4)AVID,  KLVG  OF  ISRAEL. 


Y^TER  THE  APOSTLE. 
MOSES  THE  LAW-GIVER.. 


JOSEPH  THE  PRIME -MINISTER.  \CAUL    THE    MISSIONARY.     Ill 


ELIJAH  THE  PROPHET. 


THE  SCOTTISH  PULPIT. 


RUTH  THE  GLEANER  AND  ESTHER  THE  QUEEN. 
12ino,  Cloth,  $1  50  per  volume. 


PcBLisnED  BT  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  York. 

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Copyright,  1891,  by  Harpkr  &  Brothers. 

All  rightt  retemd. 


PREFACE. 


In  adding  another  to  the  volumes  on  Bible  Biog- 
raphies which  have  been  so  widely  and  generously 
received  by  the  Christian  public,  it  is  unnecessary  to 
say  anything  as  to  the  method  which  I  have  adopt- 
ed. The  present  work  will  be  found  to  possess  the 
same  characteristics  as  those  already  issued,  its  only 
peculiarity  being  that  it  deals  with  two  women  whose 
names  are  dear  to  the  hearts  alike  of  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians. I  have  put  them  together  into  one  volume 
mainly  for  the  sake  of  convenience ;  though  there  is 
a  certain  link  of  association  between  them,  inasmuch 
as  the  Book  of  Ruth  describes  the  experiences  of  a 
Gentile  widow  in  the  midst  of  Jewish  surroundings ; 
and  the  Book  of  Esther  describes  those  of  a  Jewish 
orphan  in  a  Gentile  city. 

The  preparation  of  these  Lectures  was  peculiarly 
interesting  to  myself,  and  they  are  given  to  the  press 
in  the  hope  that  they  may  contribute  to  the  promo- 
tion of  that  revival  of  Biblical  Study  which,  during 
recent  years,  has  been  so  gratifying  to  every  lover  of 
the  Scriptures. 

That  He  without  Whose  blessing  all  human  efforts 
must  be  vain  may  deign  to  use  these  pages  for  the 
advancement  of  His  glory  in  the  temporal  and  spirit- 
ual welfare  of  man  is  "  my  heart's  desire  and  prayer." 

William  M.  Taylor. 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 


EMIGRATION  AND  BEREAVEMENT. 

RUTH  I.,  1-5. 

This  little  book  of  four  chapters  is  unique  among 
the  treasures  of  the  Word  of  God,  It  is  unlike 
every  other  portion  of  Holy  Scripture;  and  yet  it 
has  on  it  the  stamp  of  inspiration  which  is  common 
to  them  all.  Exquisite  in  its  pastoral  simplicity, 
and  valuable  for  the  glimpses  which  it  gives  us  into 
the  common  life  of  the  Jewish  people  at  the  time 
to  which  it  refers,  it  is  also  deeply  interesting  to 
the  devout  reader,  from  its  relation  to  one  who  was 
an  ancestress  of  David,  and  of  David's  greater 
Son,  and  from  the  lessons  of  love  and  constancy 
and  purity  and  integrity  which  it  so  abundantly  sug- 
gests. Withal,  however,  it  is  questionable  whether 
it  receives  from  us  the  amount  of  attention  to 
which  it  is  entitled.  It  is  said  that  Dr.  Franklin 
was  once  in  the  company  of  several  ladies  of  the 
English  nobility,  when  the  conversation  turned  upon 
pastoral  poetry.  The  ladies  took  a  considerable 
part  in  the  discussion,  and  after  hearing  their  crit- 
icisms on  various  authors,  the  doctor  offered  to 


2  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

read  the  translation  of  a  pastoral  for  their  amuse- 
ment. He  read,  with  a  few  verbal  alterations,  the 
Book  of  Ruth.  They  were  enraptured,  pronounced 
it  the  finest  they  had  ever  heard  from  any  language, 
and  insisted  upon  knowing  whose  it  was.  Imagine 
their  confusion  when  he  gravely  told  them  that  he 
had  read  it  from  the  Bible.  I  do  not  vouch  for  the 
truth  of  the  story,  though  I  found  it  in  a  reliable  place 
enough  ■*  but  though  few  of  us,  perhaps,  could  be 
so  thoroughly  imposed  on  now,  I  question  whether 
any  of  us  could  give  at  once  a  clear  and  concise 
account  of  the  story  that  is  here  told,  brief  as  it  is, 
and  I  am  sure  that  very  few  of  us  have  bestowed 
upon  it  that  measure  of  attention  which  is  needful 
for  the  bringing  out  from  it  of  the  lessons  which  it 
was  designed  to  teach.  We  may,  therefore,  spend 
very  profitably,  as  well  as  pleasantly,  a  few  Sabbath 
evenings  in  studying  it  together. 

In  m9dern  editions  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  the 
Book  of  Ruth  is  placed  among  the  Hagiographa, 
which  is  the  third  division  of  the  Old  Testament  writ- 
ings, and  which  consists  of  the  five  rolls  or  Megil- 
loth,  the  three  poetical  books  (Job,  Proverbs,  and 
Psalms),  and  the  two  books  of  Chronicles.    Ruth  is 


*  The  Biblical  Treasury,  by  J.  Cowper  Gray,  vol.  iii.,  p.  171. 
I  find,  however,  in  the  preface  to  The  Beautiful  Gleaner,  by 
the  late  Rev.  William  Braden,  that  the  same  story  is  told  of 
Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  and  on  internal  grounds  it  is,  perhaps, 
more  likely  to  be  true  of  him  than  of  Franklin. 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  3 

one  of  the  Megilloth,  of  which  the  others  were  the 
Song  of  Songs,  Lamentations,  Ecclesiastes,  and  Es- 
ther. These  books  were  so  called  because,  for  con- 
venient use  at  the  festival  on  which  it  was  read  in 
the  S)Tiagogue,  each  was  written  on  a  separate  roll. 
That  of  Esther  was  styled  Megillah  or  the  roll,  by 
way  of  eminence,  and  was  read  on  the  Feast  of  Pu- 
rim,  whose  origin  it  describes.  That  of  Ruth  was 
read  at  Pentecost,  or  the  Feast  of  Weeks,  perhaps 
because  it  contains  so  graphic  a  delineation  of  Boaz 
and  his  reapers  in  the  harvest  field.  But  this  divis- 
ion into  separate  rolls  was  probably  a  mere  liturgi- 
cal arrangement,  for  the  Septuagint,  or  Greek  ver- 
sion of  the  Old  Testament,  places  Ruth  between 
Judges  and  I.  Samuel,  as  vve  have  it  in  our  English 
Bibles.  Some,  following  the  authority  of  Josephus, 
have  alleged  that  it  was  originally  incorporated  with 
the  Book  of  Judges.  That,  however,  has  been  much 
disputed,  and  the  general  opinion  now  is  that  it  has 
always  been  a  distinct  and  separate  portion  of  the 
Old  Testament  Canon,  and  that  it  is  placed  where 
we  have  it  because  it  forms  a  fitting  introduction 
to  the  books  which  tell  of  the  glory  of  King  David's 
reign. 

The  date  of  its  composition  cannot  be  determined 
with  precision.  Some  have  gone  so  far  as  to  put  it 
after  the  Captivity,  and  would  ascribe  its  authorship 
to  Ezra,  or  Nehemiah,  on  the  ground  of  certain 
Chaldaic  forms  of  expression  which  they  allege 
they  have  detected  in  it.    But  it  is  remarkable  that 


4  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

these  all  occur  in  the  reported  conversations  which 
the  book  contains,  and  not  in  the  narrative  por- 
tions— a  fact  which  suggests  that  they  were  proba- 
bly due  to  some  peculiarity  of  dialect  not  yet  sat- 
isfactorily accounted  for;  and  in  any  case  they 
cannot  outweigh  the  great  improbability  that  a  book 
which  tells,  without  extenuation  or  apology,  how  a 
Bethlehemite  like  Boaz  married  a  Moabitish  wom- 
an, should  be  produced  at  the  very  time  when  such 
alliances  were  so  bitterly  denounced  by  the  Jewish 
leaders.  From  an  examination  of  the  book  itself,  it 
seems  clear  that  while  it  could  not  have  been  writ- 
ten earlier  than  David's  day,  because  it  contains 
two  references  to  David  himself,  it  could  not  have 
been  composed  much,  if  any,  later,  else  it  would 
have  contained  the  name  of  Solomon  in  the  gene- 
alogical table  with  which  it  closes. 

Again,  the  tone  of  the  book  throughout  is  liberal 
and  tolerant  to  the  Gentiles  ;  and  part  of  its  design 
— unconsciously  to  its  author,  perhaps,  but  not  the 
less  intentional  with  God — seems  to  be  to  prepare 
for  the  time  when  through  the  promised  Messiah  the 
middle  wall  of  partition  between  the  Jews  and  other 
nations  should  be  broken  down.  Now  the  reign  of 
David  appears  to  have  been  the  only  portion  of 
Jewish  history  during  which  such  a  spirit  towards 
the  Gentiles  was  shown  without  any  breach  of  loy- 
alty to  Jehovah.  David  himsejf  in  his  public  ad- 
ministration was  "the  man  according  to  God's 
own  heart;"  and  yet  as  one  has  suggestively  said, 


RUTH   THE    GLEANER.  5 

"nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  him  and  his  time, 
though  it  is  a  characteristic  too  commonly  over- 
looked, than  the  fair  and  easy  terms  on  which  he 
met  all  foreigners,  and  the  rare  fidelity  with  which 
friendly  aliens  clave  to  his  cause,  even  when  it  was 
a  losing  cause."*  This  fact,  therefore,  taken  in  con- 
nection with  the  personal  relation  of  David  to  the 
heroine  of  the  story,  seems  to  make  it,  if  not  abso- 
lutely certain,  at  least  fairly  probable,  that  the  Book 
of  Ruth  was  written  some  time  during  David's  reign, 
and  we  know  that  the  Royal  Psalmist  had  contem- 
poraries who,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
might  have  produced  such  a  work.  Indeed,  there 
is  much  in  the  sipaple  pathos  of  the  parable  of  the 
ewe  lamb  to  remind  us  of  the  idyllic  beauty  of  the 
Book  of  Ruth,  and  though  we  have  not  anywhere 
met  with  the  opinion,  both  might  well  enough  have 
come  from  the  prophet  Nathan. 

As  to  the  date  of  the  events  recorded  in  this  book 
all  we  know  is  that  they  happened  "  in  the  days 
when  the  Judges  ruled."  But  as  to  how  long  the 
time  of  the  Judges  lasted,  or  which  of  them  are  par- 
ticularly referred  to  in  the  opening  verse  of  Ruth, 
we  are  again  in  the  dark.  For  it  is  not  yet  settled 
among  critics  whether  we  must  regard  the  Judges 
as  so  many  magistrates  having  jurisdiction  over  the 
whole  land,  and  ruling  consecutively  from  Othniel 
to  Eli ;  or  whether  we  must  view  them  as  local  lead- 

*  Samuel  Cox,  in  The  Expositor,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  8,  9. 


6  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

ers,  each  restricted  to  some  one  particular  neighbor- 
hood, and  some  of  whom  may  have  been  contempo- 
raries. Lord  Arthur^  Hervey,  for  example,  believes 
that  Ehud,  Gideon,  and  Jephthah  flourished  at  the 
same  time ;  while  others  suppose  that  the  book,  up 
at  least  to  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  chapter,  is  to  be 
regarded  as  a  continuous  history  of  events  strictly 
following  one  another.  So,  with  this  diversity  of 
view  existing,  it  is  difficult  to  fix  upon  any  one 
judge  as  that  under  whose  administration  Boaz 
lived.  But  if  we  may  presume  that  the  genealog- 
ical table  at  the  end  of  Ruth  is  without  a  break,  so 
far  at  least  as  the  steps  between  Boaz  and  David 
are  concerned,  then  as  Boaz  was  the  great-grand- 
father of  David,  we  may  not  greatly  err  if  we  con- 
clude that  the  incidents  here  recorded  occurred 
at  a  date  somewhere  between  one  hundred  and 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  prior  to  the  days  of 
David. 

But  now,  leaving  all  preliminaries,  let  us  enter  upon 
the  book  itself.  It  tells  a  short  and  simple  story  of 
family  trial  deepening  into  the  darkness  of  repeated 
bereavement,  and  then  breaking  out  into  the  bright- 
ness of  a  joy  which  is  all  the  more  delightful  by  rea- 
son of  the  gloom  that  went  before.  The  household 
was  composed  of  Elimelech  and  his  wife  Naomi, 
with  their  two  sons,  Mahlon  and  Chilion.  Like  all 
Hebrew  names  these  are  significant,  but  whether 
we  are  to  consider  them  as  prophetic  is  quite  an- 
other matter,  though  in  at  least  two  of  the  cases 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  7 

their  appropriateness  is  remarkable.  Elimelech  i^ 
"  My  God  the  King,"  or  "  My  God  is  King."  Na- 
omi is  "sweet,"  or,  perhaps,  an  abbreviation  for 
"  God  is  sweet,"  while  Mahlon  is  "  sickliness,"  and 
Chilion  is  "consumption" — names  which  might  well 
enough  have  been  given  to  the  boys  because  of  the 
perception  in  them  by  their  parents  of  some  deli- 
cacy of  constitution,  although  other  scholars  pre- 
fer to  interpret  them  as  denoting  "  mildness  of  dis- 
position "  and  "beautiful  completeness,"  and  one 
would  think  that  parents  would  more  naturally  con- 
nect these  ideas  with  their  children  than  seek  to 
perpetuate  in  their  names  the  associations  of  phys- 
ical debility. 

The  home  of  this  family  was  in  Bethlehem-Judah,] 
so  called  to  distinguish  it  from  another  place  of  the! 
same  name  in  the  territory  of  the  tribe  of  Zebulon, 
but  now  needing  no  such  particular  designation, 
since  it  is  to  us  forever  memorable  as  the  birth- 
place of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  little  among 
the  thousands  of  Judah,  and  up  till  this  time,  with 
the  exception  of  the  fact  that  near  it  was  the  grave 
of  Rachel,  there  had  been  nothing  about  it  to  make 
it  specially  attractive  to  the  people  of  the  land. 
Rather  it  had  acquired,  if  anything,  an  unenviable 
notoriety  among  the  tribes,  for  out  of  it  had  gone 
the  Levite,  who  had  settled  as  a  household  priest 
with  Micah  in  Mount  Ephraim,  and  had  been  car- 
ried off  by  the  Danites  to  Laish,  where  he  minis- 
tered at  the  altar  which  these  early  idolaters  had 


8  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

set  up.*  To  it,  also,  had  belonged  the  ill-fated  wom- 
an whose  cruel  treatment  by  the  men  of  Gibeah  led 
to  the  almost  utter  extinction  of  the  tribe  of  Ben- 
jamin by  the  rest  of  the  Israelites.  If,  therefore, 
nothing  more  had  been  told  us  concerning  it  than 
what  is  contained  in  these  two  strange  episodes  of 
Jewish  history,  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  con- 
cluding chapters  of  the  Book  of  Judges,  we  might 
have  supposed  that  no  good  thing  could  come  out 
of  Bethlehem.  But  how  far  that  would  have  been 
from  the  truth  the  Book  of  Ruth  makes  evident, 
and  we  are  thereby  warned  of  the  danger  of  judging 
of  the  character  of  a  place  from  one  or  two  particu- 
larly unpleasant  incidents  in  its  history.  Indeed, 
when  we  come,  in  a  rural  district  like  that  of  Beth- 
lehem, and  in  such  an  age,  upon  a  quiet,  unaffected, 
simple,  pure,  and  holy  home  life,  Hke  that  which  is 
here  portrayed,  we  feel  that  we  must  not  speak  of 
the  days  of  the  Judges  too  unqualifiedly,  as  if  they 
had  been  characterized  by  constant  strife  and.  uni- 
versal defection  from  the  service  of  God.  And,  in 
any  case,  after  reading  this  history,  we  are  not  so 
surprised  as  we  otherwise  would  have  been,  that 
the  sweet  singer  of  Israel,  the  "darling"  of  his  peo- 
ple, and  the  leader  of  psalmody  for  God's  children 
of  all  succeeding  centuries,  should  have  sprung  from 
such  a  stock. 

The  town  itself  is  about  six  miles  south  of  Je- 

*  See  Judges,  chaps,  xvii.,  xviii.,  xix. 


RUTH  THE    GLEANER.  9 

rusalem,  a  little  to  the  east  of  the  road  that  leads 
to  Hebron.  It  stands  upon  the  summit  and  slopes 
of  a  narrow  ridge  which  projects  eastward  from 
the  central  chain  of  the  Judaean  mountains.  The 
sides  of  the  hill  below  the  town  are  carefully  ter- 
raced, and  even  in  modern  times  they  are  cov- 
ered with  fertile  vineyards;  while  in  the  valleys 
beneath,  and  on  a  little  plain  to  the  eastward,  there 
are  cornfields  whose  produce,  perhaps,  gave  the 
name  Bethlehem,  or  House  of  Bread,  to  the  place 
with  which  they  are  connected.  It  was  well  wa- 
tered, and  its  other  and  older  name  Ephratah  ("the 
fruitful ")  was  probably  bestowed  because  of  the  fer- 
tility of  the  district  in  the  midst  of  which  it  stood. 
But  withal  it  was  not  proof  against  the  ravages  of 
famine,  and  at  the  time  at  which  our  story  opens 
that  great  affliction  was  upon  the  people.  Perhaps 
the  former  and  latter  rains  had  not  fallen,  and  the 
usual  consequences  had  followed.  But  whatever 
was  the  cause,  there  was  "  cleanness  of  teeth  "  in 
all  the  borders  of  the  land ;  even  in  the  House  of 
Bread  there  was  scarcity,  and  the  pressure  was  so 
sore  upon  Elimelech  and  his  wife  that  to  escape 
its  miseries  they  went  with  their  two  sons  to  the 
land  of  Moab. 

The  usual  resort  of  the  Israelites  in  time  of  fam- 
ine was  Egypt ;  but  probably  on  this  occasion  the 
way  thither  was  barred  by  insuperable  obstacles, 
and  so  the  members  of  this  household  betook  them- 
selves to  Moab,  a  district  which  lay  to  the  south 


lO  RUTH   THE    GLEANER. 

and  east  of  the  Dead  Sea,  and  comprised  the  south- 
em  half  of  the  high  table-lands  which  rise  above 
the  lake,  "  On  every  side  it  was  strongly  fortified 
by  nature.  On  the  north  was  the  tremendous  chasm 
of  the  Arnon.  On  the  west  it  was  limited  by  the 
precipices,  or,  more  accurately,  the  cliifs,  which  de- 
scend almost  perpendicularly  to  the  shore  of  the 
lake,  and  are  intersected  only  by  one  or  two  steep 
and  narrow  passes.  Lastly,  on  the  south  and  east 
it  was  protected  by  a  half-circle  of  hills,  which  open 
only  to  allow  the  passage  of  the  Arnon  and  another 
of  the  torrents  which  descend  to  the  Dead  Sea."* 
It  was,  therefore,  not  very  far  from  Bethlehem.  In- 
deed, its  blue  mountains  are  said  to  be  "  distinctly 
visible  from  the  Mount  of  Olives  and  the  heights 
above  Bethlehem."t  But  it  was  remarkable  for 
general  fertility,  for  Mr.  Grove  tells  us  that  "  the 
whole  country  is  undulating,  and,  after  the  general 
level  of  the  plateau  is  reached,  without  any  serious 
inequalities ;  and  in  this  and  the  absence  of  con- 
spicuous vegetation  has  a  certain  resemblance  to 
the  downs  in  the  southern  counties  of  England." 
And,  again,  gathering  up  the  different  references  to 
it  in  the  prophetical  books,  he  says,  "  With  a  meta- 
phor which  well  expresses  at  once  the  pastoral 
wealth  of  the  country  and  its  commanding,  almost 
regal,  position,  but  which  cannot  be  conveyed  in  a 

*  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary,  s.  v.  Moab. 
f  Morison,  on  Ruth,  in  Pulpit  Commentary. 


RUTH  THE  GLEANER.  II 

translation,  Moab  is  depicted  as  the  strong  sceptre, 
the  beautiful  staff  whose  fracture  will  be  bewailed 
by  all  about  him  and  by  all  who  know  him.  In  his 
cities  we. discern  a  'great  multitude  of  people'  liv- 
ing in  'glory '  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  great '  treas- 
ure ;'  crowding  the  public  squares,  the  house-tops, 
and  the  ascents  and  descents  of  the  numerous 
high  places  and  sanctuaries,  where  the  *  priests  and 
princes '  of  Chemosh  or  Baal-Peor  minister  to  anx- 
ious devotees.  Outside  the  town  lie  '  the  plentiful 
fields '  luxuriant  as  the  renowned  Carmel — the  vine- 
yards and  gardens  of  '  summer  fruits  ' — the  harvest 
is  being  reaped,  and  the  '  hay  stored  in  abundance,' 
the  vineyards  and  the  presses  are  crowded  with 
peasants  gathering  and  treading  the  grapes,  the 
land  resounds  with  the  clamor  of  the  vintagers."* 

Here,  therefore,  there  was  every  probability  of 
finding  plenty,  and  as  Elimelech  and  his  family 
did  not  stay  in  Bethlehem  until  they  were  utterly 
impoverished  by  the  famine,  but  "went  out  full," 
they  would  have  the  means  of  availing  themselves, 
for  a  time  at  least,  of  the  abundance  by  which  they 
were  surrounded. 

But  it  was  an  idolatrous  land ;  and  the  question 
has  been  keenly  discussed  whether  or  not  Elime- 
lech committed  sin  in  leaving  the  Land  of  the  Cove- 
nant for  such  a  territory,  even  under  the  pressure  of 
famine.      Many  blame  him  very  severely,  and  do 

*  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary,  ut  supra. 


12  RUTH   THE    GLEANER. 

not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  the  afflictions  which  sub- 
sequently came  upon  his  household  were  judgments 
inflicted  on  him  for  his  transgression.  Others,  again, 
fully  vindicate  him  for  his  conduct,  and  grow  elo- 
quent over  emigration  as  a  remedy  for  famine.  But 
where  the  record  is  silent  it  does  not  become  us  to 
be  dogmatic  on  such  a  matter,  although  every  one 
will  recognize  how  full  of  spiritual  peril  it  must 
have  been  to  take  two  young  men  like  Mahlon  and 
Chilion  into  the  midst  of  idolatry ;  and  it  will  be 
with  all  a  question  whether  it  was  wise  to  run  such 
risk  to  their  souls,  simply  for  the  sake  of  obtaining 
sustenance  for  their  bodies.  The  relation  of  the  cov- 
enant people  to  the  Promised  Land  was,  of  course, 
peculiar;  and  the  more  that  was  recognized,  the 
more  loath  would  they  be  for  any  reason  to  forsake 
it  for  another.  Yet,  as  we  see  in  David's  placing 
of  his  parents  under  the  care  of  the  King  of  Moab, 
exceptional  circumstances  might  be  held  as  justify- 
ing a  temporary  sojourn  elsewhere ;  and  it  is  ob- 
vious from  the  language  here  employed  that  Elime- 
lech  did  not  mean  to  leave  Bethlehem  "for  good  and 
all,"  but  expected  to  return  thither  after  the  famine 
had  ceased. 

But  whatever  may  be  said  regarding  his  con- 
duct in  this  instance,  we  have  no  hesitation  in  ap- 
proving of  emigration  as  one  of  the  best  means 
of  furnishing  relief  for  overcrowded  countries,  and 
opening  up  new  fields  for  industry  and  enterprise ; 
and  it  is  not  without  a  smile  over  the  commentary 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  I3 

which  two  hundred  years  have  written  on  his  words 
that  we  read  the  remarks  of  quaint  old  Thomas 
Fuller,  which  we  find  in  his  fragment  on  the  Book 
of  Ruth,  apropos  of  this  question  and  this  land,  to 
the  following  effect :  "  Now,  if  any  do  demand  of 
me  my  opinion  concerning  our  brethren  which  of 
late  left  this  kingdom  to  advance  a  plantation  in 
New  England,  surely  I  think  as  St.  Paul  said  con- 
cerning virgins,  he  had  'received  no  commandment 
of  the  Lord,'  so  I  cannot  find  any  just  warrant  to 
encourage  men  to  undertake  this  removal ;  but 
think  rather  the  counsel  best  that  King  Joash  pre- 
scribed to  Ahaziah,  *  Tarry  at  home.'  Yet  as  for 
those  that  are  already  gone,  far  be  it  from  us  to 
conceive  them  to  oe  such  to  whom  we  may  not  say 
'Godspeed;'  but  let  us  pity  them,  and  pray  for 
them,  for  sure  they  have  no  need  of  our  mocks, 
which  have  too  much  of  their  own  miseries.  I  con- 
clude, therefore,  of  the  two  Englands  what  our 
Saviour  saith  of  the  two  wines,  'No  man  having 
tasted  of  the  old,  presently  desireth  the  new;  for 
he  saith  the  old  is  better.' "  In  the  light  of  subse- 
quent history  this  is  now  rather  amusing,  and  read- 
ing it  here  in  New  York  one  feels  very  much  as  he 
does  when  sitting  on  the  deck  of  an  ocean  steamer 
he  comes,  in  some  volume  of  entertaining  anec- 
dotes, upon  the  famous  demonstration  of  the  emi- 
nent engineer,  who  declared  it  to  be  impossible  for 
any  steamship  to  cross  the  Atlantic.  At  the  same 
time  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  in  all 


14  RUTH  THE  GLEANER. 

emigrations,  whether  from  one  land  to  another,  or 
from  East  to  West  in  this  our  own  land,  regard 
must  be  had  to  the  spiritual  surroundings  as  well 
as  to  the  physical  advantages,  and  we  ought  to  re- 
member that  even  the  highest  worldly  prosperity  is 
all  too  dearly  purchased  by  the  loss  of  the  soul. 

But  though  Elimelech  escaped  famine  by  moving 
to  Moab,  he  could  not  escape  death.  The  last  ene- 
my has  many  more  avenues  to  the  centre  of  life  in 
us  than  that  of  starvation.  Even  in  the  midst  of 
plenty  the  summons  came  which  said  "  thy  soul  is 
required  of  thee,"  and  he  could  not  disobey.  So 
Naomi  was  left  a  widow  among  strangers,  with  her 
two  sons.  How  she  must  have  missed  the  friends 
and  neighbors  of  Bethlehem  ii#her  time  of  trial ! 
The  aliens,  we  may  believe,  were  kind  to  her ;  but 
in  the  night  of  sorrow  there  are  no  friends  like 
home  friends,  especially  those  of  our  own  kindred. 
Many  drawings  must  her  heart  have  felt  to  the  old 
home;  but  for  some  reason,  not  here  even  sug- 
gested, the  way  thither  was  closed  against  her,  and 
she  remained  some  years  longer  in  Moab — so  long, 
indeed,  that  her  sons  seem  almost  to  have  given  up 
the  expectation  of  return,  and  married  daughters  of 
the  land.  Perhaps  that,  too,  was  a  trial  to  Naomi ; 
but  as  throughout  the  story  she  acts  always  in  a 
prudent  way,  it  is  certain  that  she  would  do  so  in 
this  also.  She  did  not  break  her  head  or  her  heart 
by  rushing  against  the  inevitable;  but  accepting 
that  which  she  could  not  prevent,  she  sought  to 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  15 

make  the  best  of  it ;  and  she  succeeded  so  well  that 
her  case  stands  out  a  perpetual  protest  against  the 
silly,  unfeeling,  and,  as  I  believe,  unjust  sneers  that 
are  so  constantly  thrown  at  the  mother-in-law  in  the 
household.  She  and  they  dealt  kindly  and  truly 
with  each  other,  and  so  they  grew  into  each  other's 
confidence  and  affection.  It  is  hard  for  a  mother 
to  see  another  come  between  her  son  and  herself, 
and  there  is  danger  lest  she  should  treat  her  as  a 
usurper ;  but  the  true  specific  for  all  such  cases  is 
that  which  Naomi  and  her  sons'  wives  employed, 
the  "dealing  kindly  and  truly  with"  each  other. 
Love  is  the  universal  solvent,  especially  when  it  is 
rooted  in  the  common  love  of  all  to  Christ,  and 
when  it  manifests  itself  in  mutual  fidelity,  not  sim- 
ply in  the  dealing  kindly,  but  also  in  the  dealing 
truly  with  each  other. 

But,  alas,  the  happiness  of  the  sons  in  their  wives, 
and  of  the  mother  in  her  daughters-in-law,  was  not 
of  long  continuance,  for  ere  long,  perhaps  owing  to 
some  inherited  delicacy  from  their  father,  Mahlon 
and  Chilion  died,  and  so — how  plaintive  are  the 
words  employed — "  the  woman  was  left  of  her  two 
sons  and  her  husband."  They  had  gone  on  and  left 
her  behind.  Had  they  done  so  of  deliberate  purpose 
it  had  been  cruel  indeed,  but  they  heard  a  voice 
which  they  could  not  choose  but  obey,  and  so  they 
passed  through  the  silent  portal,  leaving  Naomi, 
Orpah,  and  Ruth  on  the  outside.  But  they  left  God 
with  them,  and  they  were   not  bereaved   of  him. 


1 6  RUTH   THE  GLEANER. 

Still,  it  was  a  sad  home.  Three  widows  and  no 
child,  and,  as  it  would  seem  also,  no  resources.  Sor- 
row, solitude,  and  penury.  Widowhood,  woe,  and 
want  —  a  sad  trinity,  needing  no  words  of  mine 
to  set  it  in  distinctness  before  you.  What  was  now 
to  become  of  them  ?  As  we  follow  the  story  we 
shall  learn. 

Meanwhile  let  us  conclude  by  pointing  out  how 
this  brief  paragraph  illustrates  the  changeful  nature 
of  our  earthly  life.  Elimelech  seems  to  have  been 
what  we  should  call  "  well  off "  in  Bethlehem,  but 
he  went  to  Moab  for  comfort,  and  there  found 
only  a  grave,  beside  which,  within  a  few  years,  were 
those  of  his  two  sons.  Alas,  what  a  change  for 
Naomi !  And  how  often  we  see  similar  reverses  in 
the  families  of  those  we  know  and  love !  How  of- 
ten, too,  we  observe  that  what  men  do  for  the  im- 
provement of  their  circumstances  ends  in  disaster ! 
Ah !  but  we  must  not  say  ends,  and  there  is  the 
comfort  of  it  all.  You  observe  that  we  are  here 
only  at  the  beginning  of  the  history,  and  when  we 
get  to  the  end  we  shall  be  better  able  to  appreciate 
the  nature  of  this  discipline.  For  it  was  all  under 
the  control  of  God,  who  wished  thereby  not  only  to 
educate  those  who  were  primarily  concerned,  but 
also  through  them  to  reach  out  into  the  Gentile  na- 
tions, and  bring  back  one  who  should  not  merely 
become  a  mother  in  Israel,  but  also  part  of  the  first- 
fruits  of  that  Gentile  harvest  which  the  Messiah,  in 
after-generations,  was  to  reap.     The  very  name  of 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  1 7 

her  husband  might  be  a  comfort  to  Naomi  in  all 
her  distress,  for  when  we  can  say  "  my  God  is  King," 
or  which  comes  to  the  same  thing,  "  my  times  are 
in  God's  hands,"  we  are  sustained.  The  times  may 
not  be  better,  but  we  learn  to  look  through  them  to 
the  eternities,  and  to  think  that  God  is  using  the 
one  for  the  surer  gaining  by  us  of  the  other,  and 
that  holds  us  up.  It  was  a  long  look  from  the  days 
of  the  Judges  to  those  of  Christ— at  least,  it  would 
be  a  long  look  for  us  ;  but  already  God  was  prepar- 
ing for  the  advent,  and  both  Elimelech  and  Naomi 
were  in  a  sense  vicarious  sufferers,  in  order  that  the 
world  might  be  taught  that  the  Messiah,  coming  as 
he  did  of  a  lineage  in  which  are  the  names  both  of 
Rahab  and  of  Ruth,  was  to  be  the  Saviour  of  Gen- 
tiles as  well  as  Jews.  But  for  these  bereavements 
this  had  not  been  taught — at  least,  through  Ruth ; 
and  so  we  Gentiles  ought  to  look  with  peculiar  ten- 
derness on  these  Israelitish  graves  in  the  land  of 
Moab.  Those  who  were  buried  in  them  died  that 
Ruth  might  be  redeemed,  and  Ruth  is  here  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  entire  Gentile  world.  It  is  a  pro- 
found mystery.     Yet  it  is  a  comforting  truth. 


II. 

RETURN  AND  RECEPTION. 
Chapter  I.,  6-22. 

The  essence  of  home  is  in  persons,  not  in  local- 
ity. When,  therefore,  you  have  the  presence  and 
fellowship  of  those  who  are  nearest  and  dearest  to 
you,  it  is  easy  to  be  at  home  anywhere.  But  when 
the  loved  ones  are  gone,  the  fairest  surroundings 
will  not  fill  the  void  made  by  their  absence.  The 
heart  then  longs  for  that  which  strangers  cannot 
give,  and  the  old  memories  create  a  yearning  for 
the  old  home  of  early  days.  It  was  natural,  there- 
fore, that  Naomi,  after  the  death  of  her  husband 
and  her  sons,  should  be  drawn  again  towards  Beth- 
lehem, so  strongly  that  she  determined  to  return 
thither.  Forlorn,  widowed,  desolate,  and  destitute, 
she  craved  for  that  which  Moab  could  not  supply. 
A  famine  in  the  fields  of  Bethlehem  took  her  to 
Moab ;  but  now  a  famine  in  the  heart  made  her 
hunger  after  Bethlehem ;  and  having  heard  that 
"the  Lord  had  visited  his  people  in  giving  them 
bread,"  she  arose  to  set  out  for  her  native  place. 

But  her  daughters-in-law  would  not  let  her  go 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 


19 


alone.  Apparently  she  did  not  request  them  to  ac- 
company her,  but  of  their  own  accord  they  chose 
to  make  the  journey  with  her.  This  was  equally 
honorable  to  her  and  them.  ■*  Her  life  with  them 
had  been  one  of  harmony  and  love.'^  They  had 
grown  into  her  affection,  and  she  had  become  dear 
to  them.  In  the  delicate  relationship  which  sub- 
sisted between  them,  she  had  so  conducted  herself 
towards  them,  with  reticence,  with  wisdom,  and  with 
kindness ;  and  they  had  so  borne  themselves  tow- 
ards her,  with  deference,  with  reverence,  and  with 
affection,  that  they  could  not  think  of  parting  with 
her.  So  they  insisted  upon  going  with  her,  and  for 
a  time  she  permitted  them  to  be  her  companions. 
But  it  was  above  all  things  necessary,  in  her  judg- 
ment, that  she  should  be  honest  with  them,  and 
therefore  she  determined  to  put  fully  before  them 
the  real  state  of  the  case. 

They  knew  little  or  nothing  of  the  laws  and  cus- 
toms of  the  Jews,  and  thought,  perhaps,  that  it  might 
be  as  easy  for  them  to  get  on  in  Bethlehem  as  it 
had  been  for  her  to  get  on  in  Moab.  It  was  only 
just,  therefore,  that  she  should  set  before  them  as 
delicately  and  as  clearly  as  possible  the  privations 
which  they  would  have  to  face.  Possibly  there  was 
an  ordinance  in  Moab  similar  to  the  Levirate  law 
which  existed  among  the  Israelites,  in  accordance 
with  which  when  a  man  died  without  leaving  a  son, 
his  brother,  or,  if  he  had  no  brother,  his  nearest 
male  kinsman  was  under  obligation  to  marry  the 


20  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

widow,  and  the  first-born  son  of  such  a  marriage 
was  to  be  reckoned  the  son  of  the  deceased,  that 
his  name  and  lineage  might  be  preserved.  Now 
Naomi  gives  her  daughters-in-law  to  understand 
that  there  was  no  hope  of  their  obtaining  husbands 
in  that  way,  and  her  statement  implies,  though  it 
does  not  express,  that,  since  that  was  impossible, 
there  would  be  for  them  no  possibility  of  marrying 
at  all.  In  these  modern  times,  when  there  are  so 
many  avenues  open  for  a  woman's  working  for  her 
own  support,  though  there  is  need  even  of  more 
than  are  at  present  in  existence,  that  would  not  be 
reckoned  by  many  in  Ruth's  and  Orpah's-  circum- 
stances as  a  hardship.  But  in  those  early  days  it 
was  quite  different,  for  then,  as  Dr.  Cassell  tells  us, 
"  the  position  of  a  single  woman  was  an  unhappy 
one.  It  was  altogether  customary  for  youthful  wid- 
ows to  marry  again.  Only  a  husband's  house  was 
the  true  asylum  for  a  woman."* 

Now  Naomi  informs  her  daughters-in-law  that  in 
Israel  it  would  be  impossible  for  them  to  get  such 
a  settlement.  But  she  does  it  with  the  utmost  tact 
and  gentleness.  First  of  all  she  bears  unqualified 
testimony  to  their  unfeigned  kindness  to  their  hus- 
bands and  to  herself,  and  that  she  may  do  it  the 
more  unreservedly  and  the  more  impressively,  she 
turns  it  into  a  prayer,  "Jehovah  deal  kindly  with 
you,  as  ye  have  dealt  with  the  dead,  and  with  me." 

*  Lange,  in  loco. 


RUTH    THE   GLEANER.  21 

Then  she  entreats  them  to  return,  each  to  the  house 
of  her  own  mother  until,  if  Jehovah  pleased,  each 
should  find  rest  in  the  house  of  her  husband.  And 
when,  after  she  had  kissed  them,  they  still  refused 
to  comply  with  her  request,  saying,  "  Nay,  but  we 
will  return  with  thee  unto  thy  people,"  she  let 
them  see  how  hopeless  it  was  that  they  should  be 
provided  for  through  the  Levirate  law,  and  by  her 
silence  regarding  any  other  plan,  she  said  more  ex- 
pressively than  she  could  have  done  by  words,  that 
there  was  no  prospect  of  any  such  permanent  home 
for  them  in  Israel  as  either  of  them  might  easily 
find  in  Moab.  All  the  while  the  tears  fell  fast  from 
all  their  eyes,  and,  most  of  all  from  hers  who  had 
seen  the  greatest  sorrow,  for  she  virtually  says,  It  is 
far  more  bitter  for  me  than  for  you,  for  the  hand  of 
the  Lord  hath  gone  out  against  me.  Not,  therefore, 
because  she  did  not  enjoy  their  fellowship,  and  did 
not  desire  their  company,  was  she  thus  persistent. 
It  was  harder  for  her  to  part  with  them  than  it 
would  be  for  them  to  part  with  her,  ^If  they  went, 
never  again  would  there  be  one  beside  her  to  call 
her  mother,  and  she  should  go  into  the  dreariest 
of  solitudes,  while  they  would  be  each  in  her  moth- 
er's house,  and  might  look  forward  to  finding  rest 
beneath  a  husband's  roof.  Hers  would  be  the 
greater  sacrifice  if  they  went ;  but  she  could  not  be 
so  selfish  as  to  allow  them,  simply  on  her  account, 
to  bring  upon  themselves  the  privations  that  were 
inevitably  before  them. 


22  RUTH   THE  GLEANER. 

The  eflfect  of  this  representation  was  so  great  on 
Orpah  that,  with  whatever  reluctance,  she  said  fare- 
well, and  went  back  to  her  kindred.  But  Ruth,  true 
to  the  meaning  of  her  name,  would  not  be  thus  dis- 
missed. She  was  determined  not  to  be  outdone  in 
sacrifice  even  by  Naomi,  and  therefore  she  clave 
unto  her  mother-in-law.  But  not  yet  had  Naomi 
told  all  that  would  be  required  if  she  went  with 
her  to  Bethlehem.  There  was  one  other  subject 
that  must  be  awoken  about ;  and  see  with  what 
adroitness  of  indirectness  she  suggested  it  to  her 
daughter-in-law.  She  said,  "  Behold,  thy  sister-in- 
law  is  gone  back  unto  her  people  and  her  gods  ;  re- 
turn after  thy  sister-in-law."  Thus  she  reminded 
Ruth  that  if  she  went  with  her  she  would  be  leav- 
ing her  gods.  It  was  criminal  to  worship  Chemosh 
in  Judah,  and  she  must  well  consider  whether  she 
could  take  a  step  that  involved  the  sacrifice  of  her 
religion.  She  had  come  to  a  crossing  in  her  life, 
where  she  must  part  either  with  Naomi  or  with  the 
idolatry  of  Moab,  and  she  must  not  make  such  a 
decision  blindly,  inconsiderately,  and  without  count- 
ing the  cost. 

But  it  did  not  take  Ruth  long  to  determine  even 
that.  Not  for  nothing  had  she  lived  beside  Naomi, 
during  her  happy  days  of  wifehood.  She  had  seen 
in  the  Hebrew  matron  much  that  she  had  never 
witnessed  in  the  homes  of  Moab.  There  were  a 
purity,  a  meekness,  an  affection,  and  a  thoughtful- 
ness  for  others  about  her,  which  made  her  feel  that 


RUTH  THE    GLEANER.  23 

the  religion  which  had  brought  out  such  qualities 
in  her  could  not  be  bad ;  and  so  her  confidence  in 
and  admiration  of  Naomi  made  her  willing  to  vent- 
ure herself  with  Naomi's  Jehovah.  It  was  not  a 
very  intelligent  faith,  indeed,  but  it  was  a  real  faith, 
like  that  which  a  child  has  in  the  Saviour  of  whom 
his  mother  tells.  He  loves  the  Saviour  for  his 
mother's  sake,  until  at  length  he  gets  to  love  his 
mother  for  the  Saviour's  sake.  It  was  said  of 
Thomas  Arnold,  the  great  English  educator,  that 
he  first  gained  the  boys'  confidence  in  himself,  and 
then  on  the  strength  of  that  led  them  to  confidence 
in  Christ.  So  here  Naomi  had,  unconsciously,  by 
the  silent  eloquence  of  her  character,  led  Ruth  to 
confide  in  her;  and  then  at  the  critical  moment 
Ruth,  through  that  confidence,  was  brought  to  de- 
cide for  Jehovah,  without  faltering  and  without  re- 
serve. Nay,  so  strong  was  her  defermination,  and 
so  fervent  the  love  out  of  which  it  sprung,  that  it 
expressed  itself  in  words  which  no  poetry  has  out- 
rivalled  and  no  pathos  has  exceeded,  and  which 
have  come  down  through  the  centuries  with  a  music 
that  will  not  let  them  be  forgotten.  "  Entreat  me 
not  to  leave  thee,  or  to  return  from  following  after 
thee :  for  whither  thou  goest  I  will  go,  and  where 
thou  lodgest  I  will  lodge :  thy  people  shall  be  my 
people,  and  thy  God  my  God  :  where  thou  diest  will 
I  die,  and  there  will  I  be  buried :  Jehovah  do  so  to 
me  and  more  also,  if  aught  but  death  part  thee  and 
me."     What  could  be  more  unqualified  than  that? 


24  RUTH   THE    GLEANER. 

She  will  share  her  journey  and  her  lodging,  her 
home  and  her  heritage,  her  experiences  in  life  and 
her  grave  at  death.  Nor  was  this  all ;  for  not  to  be 
outdone  by  Naomi's  delicacy,  she  will  show  that 
even  already  she  was  willing  to  forswear  Chemosh, 
and  therefore  she  takes  an  oath  by  Jehovah  that 
nothing  but  death  will  ever  part  her  from  her  fel- 
lowship. It  was  nobly  promised,  and  it  was  as 
nobly  performed ;  for  the  love  that  inspired  the 
words  was  not  like  a  thorn  blaze  which,  bright  for 
a  moment,  dies  down  into  darkness,  but  rather  like 
the  glow  of  the  sunshine,  which  lasts  through  all 
the  day.  There  was  no  resisting  an  appeal  of  such 
a  sort  as  that,  and  so  Naomi,  all  the  happier  be- 
cause Ruth,  while  fully  understanding  all  that  her 
decision  involved,  had  not  followed  her  advice,  went 
with  her  gratefully  and  gladly  forward  towards  her 
destination. 

When  they  arrived  at  Bethlehem  the  people  of 
the  city  made  a  great  stir,  and  said,  "  Is  this  Nao- 
mi ?"  They  recognized  her  as  their  old  neighbor ; 
and  yet  they  saw  that  she  was  greatly  changed — so 
greatly  that  they  could  hardly  believe  that  it  was 
she  after  all.  Then  on  Naomi's  side,  also,  there 
must  have  been  some  misgivings  about  those  who 
thronged  around  her.  They  saw  the  alterations  in 
her,  but  they  were  all  unconscious  of  those  in  them- 
selves. Ten  years  make  deep  marks  in  those  over 
whom  they  pass,  especially  if  they  have  reached  the 
midtime  of  their  lives ;  and  they  who  say,  "  How 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  25 

changed  you  are,"  to  those  who  revisit  home  after 
a  long  absence,  might  well  enough  use  the  first  per- 
sonal pronoun  and  include  themselves  in  the  ejacu- 
lation. But  the  external  alterations  are  of  small 
account.  The  more  important  changes  are  those 
which  are  not  seen  all  at  once ;  and  perhaps  when 
we  compare  ourselves  with  what  we  were,  in  char- 
acter and  experience  long  ago,  we  might  each  see 
reason  to  exclaim,  "Is  this  really  myself!"  You 
may  remember  that  very  striking  poem  of  Miss  Proc- 
ter's in  which  she  represents  one  in  mature  life 
looking  at  a  portrait  of  herself  that  had  been  taken 
long  years  before,  and  moralizing  over  the  contrast 
between  then  and  now  in  a  strain  that  concludes 
with  these  two  lines  : 

"And  I  marvel  to  see  the  stranger 
Who  is  living  in  me  to-day." 

And  so  I  think  each  of  us  may  do.  So  at  least  Na- 
omi did.  As  her  old  neighbors  called  her  by  the 
old  name  in  the  old  street,  and  said,  "  Is  this  Na- 
omi }"  She  might  have  said,  "  Yes,  I  am  changed, 
I  know  it ;  but  the  deepest  change  is  one  you  do 
not  see,  for  my  heart  is  heavy.  Call  me  no  more 
Naomi  ('  sweet '),  for  the  Almighty  hath  dealt  very 
bitterly  with  me.  I  went  out  full,  and  the  Lord  hath 
brought  me  home  again  empty :  why  call  ye  me  Na- 
omi, seeing  the  Lord  hath  testified  against  me,  and 
the  Almighty  hath  afflicted  me  ?" 

It  was  very  sad.    But  the  saddest  thing  was  that 


26  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

the  Bethlehemites  made  no  response  to  her  sorrow. 
Had  she  come  back  with  pomp  and  glory  and  riches 
they  would  have  made  much  of  her ;  for  the  world 
always  fawns  upon  prosperity,  and  those  who  need 
least  of  its  attentions  get  the  most.  But  Naomi's 
account  of  her  circumstances  seems  to  have  damped 
the  ardor  of  the  welcome  given  her  by  her  old  neigh- 
bors. None  of  them  invited  her  home,  or  offered 
her  hospitality.  She  was  too  poor  now  to  be  ac- 
knowledged in  that  way;  and  after  the  first  ex- 
pressions of  surprise  at  her  appearance,  they  let 
her  severely  alone.  Nobody  proffered  her  assist- 
ance. Some  might  even  criticise  and  say,  "  She  did 
not  know  when  she  was  well.  If  she  had  only  stayed 
among  her  own  kindred,  she  might  have  been  as 
full  as  ever.  But  she  would  go.  She  made  her  own 
bed  and  she  must  lie  on  it  now,  hard  as  it  is.  And 
whatever  possessed  her  to  bring  that  young  Moab- 
itish  woman  with  her,  only  to  add  to  her  burden, 
and  make  her  perplexity  the  greater  ?"  Ah,  we 
known  all  about  it.  The  rich  have  many  friends  ; 
but  they  who  come  home  empty  from  afar,  come 
home  full  often  to  coldness  and  averted  looks.  Still 
Naomi  with  all  her  sadness  had  a  brave,  believing 
heart,  and  as  she  looked  down  upon  the  ripened 
barley  falling  before  the  reaper  in  the  fields  be- 
neath, she  would  be  reminded  of  Him  who  has  put 
for  His  people  the  rainbow  of  His  covenant  into  ev- 
ery cloud  of  trial. 

Now,  returning  over  this  deeply  pathetic  narra- 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  27 

tive,  we  may  learn  to  recognize  God's  hand  in  every- 
thing. It  is  noteworthy  how  Constantly  Naomi  did 
that.  Look  over  the  verses  that  have  to-night  been 
before  us,  and  you  will  be  greatly  struck  with  the 
frequency  with  which  this  feature  of  her  piety  pre- 
sents itself.  She  had  heard  "that  the  Ebrd  had 
visited  his  people  in  giving  them  bread."  She  said 
that  "  the  hand  of  the  Lord  had  gone  out  against 
her,"  and  again,  that  "  the  Lord  had  testified  against 
her,  and  the  Almighty  had  afflicted  her."  It  is  not 
likely  that  she  either  undervalued  or  overlooked 
secondary  causes,  but  she  believed  that  God  was  in 
and  overall  these  causes,  wbrking  out  His  own  pur- 
poses through  their  Operation.  And  she  recognized 
in  all  that  came  upon  her  the  will  of  God  concern- 
ing her.  No  doubt  she  was  wrong  in  supposing 
that  Jehovah  was  acting  bitterly  towards  her,  but 
in  that  she  erred  with  Jacob  when  he  cried,  "All, 
these  things  are  against  me."  On  the  other  hand, 
she  was  not  v/rong  in  believing  that  the  Providence 
of  God  is  in  and  over  all  events,  and  it  were  well 
for  us  if  we  realized  that  truth.  How  this  univer- 
sal providence  can  be  maintained  without  interfer- 
ing either  with  the  uniformity  of  the  workings  of 
what  men  call  the  laws  of  nature,  or  with  the  free 
agency  of  man,  it  may  be  impossible  for  us  to  ex- 
plain ;  but  that  it  is  maintained  I  take  to  be  es- 
tablished both  by  the  testimony  of  history  in  gen- 
eral, and  of  individual  experience  in  particular. 
And  if  we  believe  the  words  of  Jesus,  when  He  says 


28  RUTH   THE  GLEANER. 

that  the  hairs  of  our  heads  are  numbered,  and  that 
a  sparrow  cannot  fall  to  the  ground  without  our 
Father,  we  cannot  hesitate  to  accept  tlie  doctrine, 
whatever  mystery  there  may  be  about  the  mode  of 
the  divine  operation. 

Now,  accepting  that  doctrine,  we  have  in  it  an 
antidote  both  to  pride  in  the  time  of  prosperity,  and 
to  despondency  in  the  season  of  adversity.  For  if 
prosperity  comes,  it  comes  from  God ;  and  if  ad- 
versity befalls  us,  it  has  been  sent  from  God ;  and 
since  He  is  love,  and  has  shown  that  love  by  the 
sacrifice  of  His  Son  upon  the  Cross,  we  may  be 
sure  that  if  we  are  His  people  in  Christ,  He  cannot 
mean  anything  but  love  to  us,  whatever  He  may 
permit  to  come  upon  us.  Naomi,  therefore,  was 
not  wrong  in  tracing  all  her  changes  in  condition 
to  God,  but  she  erred  in  ascribing  any  bitterness 
to  God  in  His  treatment  of  her.  The  father  loves 
the  child  as  really  when  he  administers  the  disa- 
greeable medicine  which  is  to  recover  him  from 
disease  as  when  he  is  dandling  him  upon  his 
knees.  The  only  difference  is  in  the  manner  in 
which  the  love  is  shown,  and  that  is  accounted  for/ 
by  the  differences  in  the  circumstances  of  the  child. 
In  like  manner  adversity,  how  bitter  soever  it  may 
be,  is  a  manifestation  of  God's  love  to  us,  designed 
for  our  ultimate  and  highest  welfare.  Now  this  may 
well  reconcile  us  to  trial.  I  say  reconcile  us  to  it. 
It  will  not  make  the  trial  less,  but  it  will  help  us  to 
bear  it,  just  as  the  wounded  man  is  braced  for  tlie 


RUTH   THE    GLEANER.  29 

amputation  of  a  limb,  when  he  is  told  that  it  is  in- 
dispensable if  his  life  is  to  be  preserved.  There  is 
a  "  needs  be  "  for  every  affliction,  otherwise  it  would 
not  come  upon  us  under  the  providence  of  a  God 
of  love;  and  He  sends  it  not  in  bitterness  to  us,  but 
as  the  necessary  means  of  "  making  perfect  that 
which  concerneth  us." 

Then  if  He  send  prosperity,  we  owe  that  to  His 
favor  rather  than  to  our  own  ability ;  or  if  in  any 
sense  we  owe  it  to  our  own  ability,  then  that  ability 
is  itself  His  gift.  So  our  faith  in  that  view  of  the 
case  will  keep  us  from  self-conceit.  Thus  the  true 
believer  in  God's  universal  providence,  if  his  faith 
in  that  doctrine  be  intelligent,  is  preserved  alike 
from  pride  and  haughtiness  of  heart  in  fulness,  and 
from  despair  in  emptiness.  That  doctrine  is  to  the 
Christian's  heart  what  a  compensation  balance  is  to 
a  chronometer,  and  gives  him  equanimity  in  all 
conditions,  so  that  he  can  sing  : 

"  Father,  I  know  that  all  my  life  is  portioned  out  by  Thee, 
And  the  changes  that  are  sure  to  come  I  do  not  fear  to 
see." 

and  all  his  desire  is  so  to  possess  his  soul,  that  he 
may  fall  in  with  God's  plan,  and  do  always  the 
things  which  please  Him.  Naomi  did  not  all  at 
once  attain  to  that  spirit,  but  she  came  to  it  at 
length,  and  we  may  accept  the  conclusion  at  which 
she  ultimately  arrived,  as  the  premises  from  which 
we  ought  to  reason.     Why  should  we  repeat  either 


30  RUTH   THE  GLEANER. 

Jacob's  unbelief  or  hers,  when  we  see  how  kindly 
that  was  rebuked  and  condemned  in  both  cases,  by 
the  result  of  that  process  the  course  of  which  so 
deeply  distressed  them  ?  "  Rest  in  the  Lord,  wait 
patiently  for  Him."  Let  Him  finish  His  work  in 
you  before  you  presume  to  say  that  He  is  dealing 
bitterly  with  you  or  testifying  against  you,  for  this 
is  one  instance  in  which  the  otherwise  most  ques- 
tionable doctrine  is  true,  that  "  the  end  justifies  the 
means,"  and  when  you  get  to  the  end,  you  will  ex- 
claim, "  He  hath  done  all  things  well." 

But  as  a  second  lesson  from  this  simple  story 
we  may  learn  the  duty  of  absolute  frankness  in  our 
dealings  with  each  other.  Naomi  could  not  think 
of  taking  her  daughters-in-law  with  her  without  tell- 
ing them  what  was  before  them.  If  she  had  not 
done  this,  and  they  had  gone  with  her,  then  on  their 
first  experience  of  hardship  they  might  have  up- 
braided her  for  her  selfishness  and  cruelty  ;  so  she 
put  everything,  delicately,  indeed,  yet  fairly,  before 
them.  She  told  them  the  worst,  so  that  if  they 
went  with  her  and  had  to  endure  that,  they  might 
never  say  that  she  had  painted  things  all  too  rosily. 
If  they  were  to  be  disappointed  at  all,  she  preferred 
that  it  should  be  in  finding  things  better  and  not 
worse  than  she  had  indicated.  Now,  this  is  a  mat- 
ter of  great  importance,  which  is  not,  I  fear,  suf- 
ficiently considered  by  most  people.  When  two 
parties  are  in  negotiation,  usually  one  of  them  is 
bent  simply  and  only  on  success.     He  wishes,  like 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  31 

an  advocate,  to  gain  his  cause,  and  exaggerates  all 
that  tells  for  his  side,  keeping  out  of  view  altogether 
or  depreciating  ever)'thing  against  it;  and  the  re- 
sult, if  he  carries  his  point,  is  sure  to  be  disappoint- 
ment and  estrangement.  Some  time  ago  certain 
parties  in  the  old  country  were  induced,  through 
flattering,  and,  indeed,  lying  descriptions,  to  pur- 
chase some  lands  in  Florida,  and  when  they  came 
out  to  take  possession  they  found  there  nothing 
but  bare  and  barren  sand.  Can  you  wonder  that 
they  exclaimed  against  the  deceitfulness  of  Ameri- 
cans in  general,  and  Florida  land-agents  in  particu- 
lar? But  while  we  condemn  such  rascality  as  that, 
are  we  so  sure  that  our  own  hands  are  clean? 
There  is  an  old  Roman  maxim.  Caveat  eniptof — 
"  Let  the  buyer  look  after  himself  " — which  has  al- 
ways seemed  to  me  to  have  the  rankest  dishonesty 
beneath  it,  and  which,  I  fear,  is  too  often  acted  upon 
even  among  ourselves.  Now,  if  we  are  going  to 
sell  anything,  let  us  sell  it  for  what  it  is,  and  not 
for  what  we  know  that  it  is  not.  If  the  buyer  is 
mistaken,  let  us  show  him  his  mistake,  even  if  we 
should  at  present  lose  money  thereby ;  for  if  we 
do  not,  we  shall  not  only  do  a  dishonest  act,  but 
we  shall  lose  him  for  a  customer.  It  looks  very 
"  smart "  to  take  advantage  of  the  ignorance  of  him 
with  whom  you  are  dealing,  but  if  you  do,  he  will 
be  "  smart "  enough  never  to  give  yoti  the  chance 
again,  and  if  you  go  on  in  that  way  your  business 
will  very  soon  be  at  an  end.     The   open,  frank 


32  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

truthful  policy,  even  as  a  policy,  is  always  best; 
but  it  is  more  than  a  policy,  it  is  a  duty,  and  that 
cannot  be  evaded  without  sin. 

Nor  is  it  only  in  business  that  we  need  to  imi- 
tate Naomi's  frankness  with  her  daughters-in-law. 
We  ought  to  act  on  the  same  principle,  also,  in  the 
church.  If  a  congregation  eagerly  desires  a  cer- 
tain man  for  a  pastor,  the  members  should  set 
everything  fairly  before  him,  and  he  should  be 
equally  open  and  above-board  with  them.  He 
ought  not  to  impose  on  them  with  a  few  showy 
sermons,  which  he  has  elaborated  for  the  captivat- 
ing of  the  multitude,  and  they  ought  not  to  cover 
up  everything  that  is  difficult  or  disagreeable  among 
them.  Thus  neither  will  be  disappointed  in  the 
other.'  And,  in  general,  if  we  see  a  friend  bent 
upon  a  course  of  any  sort  under  an  entire  misap- 
prehension of  what  the  consequence  shall  be,  we 
ought,  in  justice  to  ourselves  dnd  in  faithfulness  to 
him,  to  put  before  him  with  all  delicateness,  yet 
with  absolute  truthfulness,  that  which  he  will  have 
to  face.  Then  if  he  will  he  will,  but  we,  at  least, 
have  endeavored  to  secure  that  he  should  know 
what  he  is  doing. 

In  this  connection  who  can  forget  the  absolute 
honesty  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  His  invitations 
to  men  to  become  His  disciples  ?  He  promised 
them  rest,  indeed,  but  it  was  rest  to  their  souls,  and 
He  never  kept  out  of  view  the  difficulties  which 
they  would  have  to  encounter  if  they  sought  to  act 


RUTH    THE   GLEANER.  ^^ 

on  His  principles.  Here  are  the  terms  of  disciple- 
ship  as  laid  down  by  Himself :  "  If  any  man  be 
willing  to  come  after  Me,  let  him  renounce  self  and 
take  up  his  cross  daily  and  follow  Me  ;"  and,  as  you 
remember,  he  exhorted  some  who  were  more  senti- 
mental than  serious  to  sit  down  and  count  the  cost, 
lest,  having  put  their  hands  to  the  plough,  they 
should  look  back  and  so  prove  unworthy  of  Him. 
Nov/,  that  procedure  of  our  Lord  is  valuable  not 
only  as  teaching  inquirers  what  they  must  expect 
if  they  become  His  disciples,  but  also  as  an  exam- 
ple to  us  all  to  deal  with  absolute  honesty  and 
frankness  with  all  with  whom  we  have  any  negotia- 
tions, and  sure  I  am  that  if  we  all  did  so  there 
would  be  fewer  criminations  and  recriminations 
between  those  who  ought  to  dwell  in  harmony  and 
love.  It  cost  Naomi  a  good  deal  to  say  what  she 
did  to  her  daughters-in-law,  but  it  would  have  cost 
her  more  if  she  had  allowed  Orpah  to  go  forward 
blindfold  to  Bethlehem,  for  when  the  eye-opening 
came  there  would  have  been  a  painful  rupture,  fol- 
lowed, perhaps,  by  constant  embitterment.~i 

But  a  third  lesson  from  this  narrative  is  the  value 
of  decision.  Look  at  these  words :  "  When  she  saw 
that  she  was  steadfastly  minded  to  go  with  her,  she 
left  off  speaking  unto  her."  Ruth's  firmness  put  a 
stop  to  Naomi's  entreaties.  And  it  is  the  same  al- 
ways. When  Paul  icould  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  de- 
spite the  tears  of  his  friends,  they  ceased  their  im- 
portunity and  said,  "  The  will  of  the  Lord  be  done." 


34  RUTH   THE  GLEANER. 

And  if  a  man  is  seen  to  be  decided  in  his  stand  for 
Christ,  antagonists  will  give  over  assailing  him. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  use  of  which  men  are  more 
discriminating  than  entreaty,  argument,  or  influence. 
So  long  as  the  object  of  their  solicitude  is  wavering 
they  will  bring  all  their  batteries  to  bear  upon  him, 
for  there  is  still  the  hope  that  he  will  yield.  But 
when  he  comes  openly  and  determinedly  out  for 
Christ  they  will  waste  no  more  ammunition  on  him. 
They  leave  him  thenceforth  alone,  and  attack  some 
one  else.  Thus  decision,  while  it  may  require  an 
effort  to  make  it,  is,  after  it  is  made,  a  safeguard 
against  assault.  The  attack  is  reserved  for  those 
who  are  yet  undecided,  but  the  decision  silences  all 
further  importunity.  So  long  as  a  vessel  has  no 
flag  at  her  mast-head,  the  sea-robber  may  think  it 
safe  to  attack  her ;  but  let  her  hoist  the  flag  of  this 
nation,  and  that  will  make  the  assailant  pause.  In 
like  manner,  the  hoisting  over  us  of  the  banner 
of  the  Cross,  being  a  symbol  of  decision,  is  also 
an  assurance  of  protection.  Up  with  it  then,  my 
hearer,  and  keep  it  up ;  for  while  it  shows  that  you 
have  decided  to  be  His,  it  places  you  also  under 
His  divine  protection,  and  there  you  are  secure. 
Take  your  stand — manfully,  prayerfully,  and  deter- 
minedly ;  and  when  others  see  that  you  have  done 
so  they  will  let  you  alone. 

Finally.  This  story  shows  us  the  difference  be- 
tween mere  amiability  and  devotion.  Orpah  was  a 
good,  kindly-dispositioned  woman,  thoroughly  amia- 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  35 

ble,  very  friendly  to  Naomi,  but  not  willing  to  make 
the  greatest  sacrifice  for  her.  When  it  came  to  the 
point  where  she  had  to  choose  between  the  utter 
sacrifice  of  herself  for  Naomi  and  the  return  to  her 
mother's  house,  then,  amiable  as  she  was,  she  went 
back  to  Moab.  But  Ruth's  devotion  was  self-for- 
getting, and,  at  whatever  sacrifice,  she  would  go 
with  Naomi  to  Bethlehem,  Now,  without  pronounc- 
ing any  condemnation  on  Orpah,  I  may  take  these 
two  widowed  sisters  as  types  of  two  classes  in  their 
relation  to  Christ.  On  the  one  hand  there  are  some 
who  allege  that  they  are  not  opposed  to  the  gospel. 
On  the  whole  they  rather  think  well  of  it.  They 
attend  its  ordinances.  Up  to  a  certain  point  they 
are  its  friends.  But  after  a  time  they  come  to  a 
fork  in  the  road,  where  they  must  either  part  with 
Christ  and  His  salvation  or  give  up  some  heart- 
idolatry  which  they  have  long  cherished ;  and  there 
they  halt.  They  are  not  willing  to  give  that  up 
even  for  Him.  They  have  amiability,  but  not  de- 
votion— their  centre  is  self,  not  Christ.  But  there 
are  others  who  will  follow  the  Lord  no  matter  at 
what  cost  or  sacrifice ;  for  it  is  the  Lord  they  are 
thinking  of  and  devoted  to,  not  self.  Now  to  which 
of  these  two  classes  do  you  belong?  Are  you  un- 
willing to  renounce  self  for  Christ  ?  Then  let  the 
words  of  Ruth  determine  you.  Cleave  fast  to  Christ. 
He  is  going  to  a  glorious  land — the  home  of  joy  and 
love.  His  lodging  is  a  chamber  whose  window  open- 
eth  towards  the  sunrising,  the  name  of  which  is 


36  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

Peace.  His  people  are  a  happy  people ;  His  God  is 
a  faithful  God  ;  His  death  is  a  victorious  death  ;  His 
burial  is  a  hopeful  burial,  to  be  followed  by  a  glorious 
resurrection.  There  is  not  another  of  whom  these 
things  can  be  said  with  truth — therefore  cleave  to 
Him  through  good  report  and  through  evil  report, 
and  He  will  give  you  an  abundant  entrance  into 
His  Father's  house  on  high. 


in. 

GLEANING. 
Chapter   II.   1-17. 

Things  were  at  the  lowest  ebb  with  Naomi.  She 
had  used  no  mere  figure  of  speech  when  she  said 
that  the  Lord  had  "brought  her  home  empty,"  for 
she  was  literally  destitute  of  the  means  of  support. 
Something,  therefore,  had  to  be  done  at  once  to 
meet  the  emergency,  and  Ruth  proved  herself  equal 
to  the  occasion.  It  was  the  beginning  of  barley 
harvest,  and  the  sight  of  the  reapers  at  work,  with 
the  gleaners  following  them,  suggested  to  her  what 
she  would  do.  She,  too,  would  become  a  gleaner, 
for  Naomi's  sake.  But  she  would  do  nothing  with- 
out Naomi's  sanction,  and,  therefore,  she  came  to 
her  with  this  request :  "  Let  me  now  go  to  the  field 


RUTH    THE   GLEANER.  37 

and  glean  ears  of  corn  after  him  in  whose  sight  I 
shall  find  grace."  What  thoughtful  delicacy !  what 
excellent  wisdom  !  what  energy  of  promptitude  have 
we  here  !  She  did  not  wait  until  Naomi  asked 
whether  she  could  not  help  in  some  way  to  keep 
the  wolf  from  the  door,  but,  identifying  herself 
thoroughly  with  her  mother-in-law,  and  recognizing 
the  necessity  for  exertion,  she  resolutely  rose  to  the 
emergency  and  determined  to  do  what  she  could  for 
their  common  maintenance.  Nor  was  she  scrupu- 
lous as  to  the  sort  of  industry  in  which  she  should 
engage.  It  might  be  true  that  she  had  been  in 
comfortable  circumstances,  and  had  never  needed 
to  do  any  kind  of  out-door  work  while  her  husband 
Uved  ;  but  she  accepted  the  situation  now,  and  was 
willing  to  do  anything,  however  lowly,  if  only  it  were 
honest,  for  her  own  and  her  mother's  livelihood. 
She  did  not  dictate  to  Providence,  or  say  that  if  she 
could  get  this  or  that  she  would  take  it,  but  she 
could  never  bring  her  self  to  do  that  other.  Rather 
she  was  willing  to  take  any  honorable  course  that 
might  open  to  her,  and,  as  gleaning  was  the  first 
that  presented  itself,  she  would  take  that,  unless 
Naomi  objected. 

It  is  always  hard  for  those  who  have  been  in 
comfort  and  are  reduced  to  destitution  to  bring 
themselves  to  this  willinghood  to  take  what  offers, 
and  perhaps  it  was  easier  for  Ruth  to  act  on  such 
a  determination  in  Bethlehem  than  it  would  have 
been  in  Moab,  among  those  who  had  known  her 


38  RUTH   THE   GLEANER, 

when  she  was  better  off.  But  in  all  cases,  that 
is  the  surest  way  out  of  penury,  and  the  sooner 
it  is  taken  the  shorter  is  the  road.  Naomi  was 
well  aware  of  that,  we  may  be  sure,  and,  there- 
fore, with  unexpressed  admiration  of  the  common- 
sense  and  what  I  may  call  the  *'  pluck  "  of  Ruth, 
and  with  silent  gratitude  to  God  for  this  manifesta- 
tion of  her  self-sacrificing  love,  she  put  no  obstacle 
in  her  way,  but  said  to  her  heartily  and  with  ap- 
proval, "Go,  my  daughter." 

The  field  to  which  Ruth  went,  though  apparently 
one  large  and  undivided  area,  was  really  made  up 
of  the  aggregate  portions  of  land  possessed  by  those 
who  dwelt  in  Bethlehem.  Just  as,  even  at  the  pres- 
ent day,  in  some  parts  of  Switzerland,  the  agricult- 
ural population  live  in  villages  round  which  their 
several  patches  of  land  lie — not  cut  up  by  hedges  or 
fenced  off  by  stone  walls — but  forming  what  appears 
to  be  one  immense  field,  though  it  is  actually  very 
carefully  mapped  out  and  divided  by  landmarks 
which  are  perfectly  recognizable  by  the  inhabitants 
themselves ;  so  it  was,  long  ago,  in  Bethlehem.  To 
a  casual  visitor  there  would  seem  to  be  but  one  field, 
but  yet  the  portion  of  each  proprietor  was  marked 
sometimes  by  heaps  of  small  stones,  and  sometimes 
by  single  upright  stones  placed  at  short  but  regular 
intervals  from  each  other.  This  enables  us  to  un- 
derstand the  precept  against  the  removal  of  a  neigh- 
bor's landmark,  and  explains  why  in  the  narrative 
before  us  the  word  "  field  "  is  in  the  singular,  and 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.     •  39 

why  it  is  said  that  Ruth  found  her  place  of  privilege 
in  the  "part  of  the  field  which  belonged  to  Boaz." 
In  the  law  of  Moses  we  find  the  following  ordi- 
nances regarding  gleaning :  "  When  ye  reap  the  har- 
vest of  your  land,  thou  shalt  not  wholly  reap  the 
corners  of  thy  field ;  neither  shalt  thou  gather  the 
gleanings  of  thy  harvest ;  and  thou  shalt  not  glean 
thy  vineyard,  neither  shalt  thou  gather  every  grape 
of  thy  vineyard ;  thou  shalt  leave  them  for  the  poor 
and  stranger :  I  am  the  Lord  your  God."*  Again, 
"  When  ye  reap  the  harvest  of  your  land  thou  shalt 
not  make  clean  riddance  of  the  corners  of  thy  field 
when  thou  reapest ;  neither  shalt  thou  gather  any 
gleaning  of  thy  harvest ;  thou  shalt  leave  them  unto 
the  poor  and  to  the  stranger :  I  am  the  Lord  your 
God."t  And  once  more ;  "  When  thou  cuttest  down 
thine  harvest  in  thy  field,  and  hast  forgot  a  sheaf 
in  the  field,  thou  shalt  not  go  again  to  fetch  it ;  it 
shall  be  for  the  stranger,  for  the  fatherless,  and  for 
the  widow ;  that  the  Lord  thy  God  may  bless  thee 
in  all  the  work  of  thine  hands."t  There  was  no 
money  tax  levied  in  Israel  for  the  relief  of  the  poor, 
and  so  this  provision  was  made  for  them.  The  land- 
holders were  never  to  remove  everything  from  their 
fields,  but  were  always  to  leave  something  for  the 
stranger  and  the  destitute.  But  while  this  series  of 
laws  required  the  proprietors  of  the  soil  to  remember 
the  poor,  it  did  not  give  indiscriminate  right  to  the 

*  Lev.  xix.,  9-10.     f  Lev.  xxiii.,  22.     |  Dcut.  xxiv. ,  19. 


40  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

destitute  to  go  where  they  pleased  and  gather  what 
they  could  find.  That  would  have  led  to  great 
abuses.  The  forward  and  obtrusive  among  those 
who  were  in  want  would  then  have  carried  off  the 
hon's  share ;  while  the  timid  and  shrinking  and  sen- 
sitive ones  would  have  been  left  out  in  the  cold. 
And  again,  there  might  have  been  a  run  upon  some 
particular  fields  to  the  almost  entire  neglect  of 
others,  and  so  there  would  have  been  unequal 
pressure  upon  the  different  proprietors.  Therefore, 
while  the  right  of  the  poor  to  glean  was  clearly  se- 
cured, the  exercise  of  that  right  by  them  was  regu- 
lated by  requiring  that  the  gleaner  should  obtain 
permission  from  the  proprietor  or  his  representative 
before  beginning  operations.  So  when  she  reached 
the  field,  Ruth,  being  attracted  in  the  providence 
of  God,  either  by  the  kindly  countenance  of  the 
steward  or  by  the  appearance  of  the  maidens  who 
were  working  under  his  superintendence,  to  Boaz's 
section  of  the  land,  went  and  made  request  of  "  the 
man  who  was  set  over  the  reapers,"  saying,  "  I  pray 
you  let  me  glean  and  gather  after  the  reapers  among 
the  sheaves,"  and  the  favor  so  modestly  asked  was 
willingly  granted. 

But  how  came  Ruth  to  be  able  to  make  herself 
intelligible  to  this  steward  ?  The  question  is  natu- 
ral, for  she  was  a  Gentile  and  had  only  a  few  days 
before  arrived  in  Bethlehem.  But'  the  answer  has 
been  furnished  by  the  inscription  on  the  Moabite 
Stone,  which  was  discovered  in  1868,  and  which 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  41 

has  proved  that  there  was  little  difference  between 
the  Moabitish  and  Hebrew  languages.  The  dis- 
tinguishing peculiarities  in  each  were  mainly  dia- 
lectic— like  the  provincialisms  prevailing  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  England ;  but  beneath  these  there  was 
a  common  vernacular  intelligible  to  both.  There- 
fore we  need  not  wonder  that  Ruth  could  converse 
so  fluently  and  intelligently  with  the  people  of 
Bethlehem. 

But  it  is  now  nearing  noonday,  and  yonder  is 
the  proprietor  himself,  coming  to  look  after  his 
servants.  Let  us  attentively  regard  him,  for  he  is 
well  worthy  of  our  notice,  not  only  because  he  will 
become  a  principal  actor  in  our  little  drama,  but 
also  because  he  is  a  worthy  specimen  of  the  people 
to  whom  he  belongs  and  of  the  class  which  he  rep- 
resents. He  is  described  in  the  first  verse  of  our 
chapter  as  "  a  mighty  man  of  wealth,"  but  it  is 
questionable  if  that  expression  fairly  represents  the 
original.  The  phrase  is  identical  with  that  which 
is  elsewhere  rendered  "a  mighty  man  of  valor," 
and  only  in  one  other  place  is  it  translated  as  here, 
"  a  mighty  man  of  wealth."  Some,  therefore,  have 
supposed  that  he  was  a  great  warrior,  and  others 
have  leaned  to  the  idea  that  he  was  merely  a  man 
of  wealth.  But  in  these  early  days,  especially  un- 
der the  rule  of  the  Judges,  when  hostile  inroads  on 
the  chosen  people  were  so  frequently  made  by  un- 
friendly neighbors,  the  man  who  had  great  posses- 
sions was  in  a  manner  compelled  to  be  also  a  mill- 


42 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 


tary  leader  ;  and  so  we  may  very  justly  combine  the 
two  meanings,  and  speak  of  him  as  a  valiant  man 
and  a  wealthy ;  or,  as  Dr.  J.  Morison  has  para- 
phrased the  expression,  "  a  strong  and  substantial 
yeoman."  His  name  was  Boaz,  which  signifies 
either  strength  or  agility;  or,  according  to  some 
others,  prosperousness,  and  he  was,  as  the  chapter 
tells  us,  a  kinsman  of  Elimelech,  belonging,  indeed, 
to  the  same  "family."  The  word  translated  kins- 
man here  means  primarily  "  an  acquaintance,"  but 
as  the  closest  acquaintances  are  ordinarily  kins- 
folk, it  came  to  signify  a  relation.  What  the  de- 
gree of  relationship  between  Boaz  and  Elimelech 
was  we  are  not  distinctly  informed.  We  shall  find 
before  the  close  of  the  story  that  he  was  not  the 
nearest  of  kin,  but  that  he  was  a  near  kinsman, 
and  the  rabbis — without,  however,  giving  an  atom 
of  evidence  in  support  of  their  assertion — have  af- 
firmed that  he  was  Elimelech's  nephew,  and  there- 
fore the  first  cousin  of  Ruth's  husband.  .  Note,  in 
passing,  the  minute  providence  which  led  Ruth  to 
the  part  of  the  field  which  belonged  to  this  man. 
She  knew  nothing  of  his  relationship  to  her  hus- 
band ;  it  had  even  escaped  the  recollection  of  Na- 
omi, until  she  had  it  brought  back  to  her  memory 
in  the  evening  by  Ruth's  report  of  the  day's  pro- 
ceedings. But,  all  unconsciously  to  herself,  she 
was  drawn  to  the  very  place  out  of  which  her  help 
was  to  come.  The  record  says,  "  Her  hap  was  to 
light  upon"  the  Boaz  part  of  the  field,  or,  as  it 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  43 

might  be  more  literally  rendered,  "  Her  hap  hap- 
pened," "her  lot  met  her."  But  the  historian 
would  not  have  us  to  believe  that  it  was  all  by 
chance.  On  the  contrary,  the  great  lesson  of  the 
book  is  that  *'  the  Lord  is  mindful  of  His  own,"  and 
that  He  leads  them  through  ways  that  they  know 
not,  to  the  end  which  He  has  designed  for  them. 
But  the  writer  speaks  here  after  the  manner  of 
men.  He  describes  all  that  men  see.  They  cannot 
trace  the  workings  of  the  divine  hand ;  they  per- 
ceive only  what  takes  place  before  their  eyes  ;  and 
so  he  says  here  of  Ruth  that  "  her  hap  happened," 
"her  lot  met  her,"  "her  hap  was  to  light"  on  the 
part  of  the  field  belonging  to  Boaz,  but  he  means 
every  reader  to  infer  that  God  had  turned  her  steps 
thither. 

But  listen,  as  Boaz  comes  along  to  join  his  band, 
he  cries  to  them,  "  The  Lord  be  with  you."  Mark 
the  courtesy  of  this  great  man.  He  is  not  above 
speaking  kindly  to  his  workmen.  He  does  not  hold 
himself  stiffly  aloof  from  them.  He  does  not  or- 
der them  about  with  haughty  indifference,  as  if  he 
were  speaking  to  an  inferior  order  of  beings.  No, 
no ;  they,  too,  belong  to  the  chosen  people.  All 
alike  are  children  of  Abraham.  All  alike  are  in- 
cluded in  the  covenant.  They  are  all  members  of 
the  same  spiritual  household,  and  so  he  treats 
them  with  respectful  kindness. 

Mark,  again,  his  piety.  He  cries,  '■'The  Lord  be 
with  you."     Now,  I  know  that  this  has  become  the 


44  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

common  salutation  in  the  East,  for  Dr.  Thomson 
tells  us  that  "  The  Lord  be  with  you  "  is  merely 
the  "  Allah  m'akum  "  of  ordinary  custom.  I  am 
well  aware,  also,  that  by  frequent  use,  even  such 
expressions  of  piety  come  to  be  employed  without 
any  pious  feeling,  and  often  even  by  those  who 
have  no  faith  in  God  at  all.  How  seldom  do  we 
think  of  God  when  we  say  "good-bye,"  which  is 
simply  "  God  be  with  you !"  It  is  possible  that 
even  infidels  and  atheists  may  take  leave  of  each 
other  with  that  word,  and  without  any  conscious- 
ness of  inconsistency  in  so  making  use  of  it.  So  it 
is  possible  that  Boaz  simply  meant  to  be  courteous 
when  he  used  this  salutation,  and  that  there  was  no 
more  piety  in  it  than  there  is  in  a  modern  "good- 
bye." It  is  possible,  but  not  very  probable,  for,  as 
we  shall  see  in  the  future,  this  man  was  in  the  habit 
of  tracing  all  blessings  to  God,  and  of  commending 
those  whom  he  loved  to  the  care  of  God,  and  there- 
fore in  his  mouth  the  ordinary  salutation  was  re- 
stored from  its  common  colorlessness  to  its  first 
uncommon  piety,  and  meant  everything  which  it 
had  originally  expressed. 

But  this  salutation  was  no  mere  one-sided  thing. 
The  reapers  answered,  "The  Lord  bless  thee." 
They  did  not  look  askance  upon  their  employer,  as 
if  he  had  been  their  natural  enemy.  They  recog- 
nized that  in  his  prosperity  they  would  prosper,  and 
that  in  his  adversity  they  could  not  but  be  sufferers 
with  him ;  and  therefore  they  reciprocated  his  cour- 


RUTH    THE   GLEANER.  45 

tesy,  and  followed  his  prayer  for  them  by  their 
prayers  for  him.  It  is  a  beautiful  sight.  One  feels 
almost  as  if  he  were  transported  three  thousand 
years  back  to  Bethlehem,  and  saw  it  all  before  his 
eyes.  The  portly  proprietor  coming  with  stately 
dignity  along  to  his  own  plot  of  the  field,  and  kind- 
ly saluting  the  laborers  in  Jehovah's  name ;  the 
reapers  lifting  themselves  up  simultaneously  from 
their  constrained  position,  each  with  the  sweat  on 
his  face  and  the  sickle  in  his  hand,  returning  the 
salutation  with  hearty  affection :  "  An  intercourse 
this,"  as  William  Arnot  says,  "between  rich  and 
poor,  between  master  and  servant,  which  we  love 
to  think  of  in  those  patriarchal  times,  which  we 
weep  the  want  of  in  our  own."* 

As  Boaz  glances  over  the  band,  he  sees  a  stran- 
ger among  the  gleaners.  But  though  he  is  struck 
with  her  appearance,  and  interested  to  inquire  con- 
cerning her — for  in  a  small  community  like  that  of 
Bethlehem  the  appearance  of  a  new-comer  would 
always  awaken  curiosity — yet  he  does  not  make  im- 
mediate inquiry  concerning  her.  With  a  delicate- 
ness  which  seems  to  have  been  more  common  in 
those  times  than  it  is  in  some  circles  among  our- 
selves, he  waited  until  Ruth  had  gone  for  rest  into 
the  hut  which  had  been  erected  for  the  shelter  of 
the  work-people  from  the  sun,  and  then  in  her  ab- 

*  The  Race  for  Riches,  and  some  of  the  Pits  into  which  the 
Runners  fall.  By  William  Arnot,  pp.  i,  2.  Edinburgh, 
1852. 


46  RUTH  THE   GLEANER, 

sence  he  said  to  his  steward,  "What  damsel  is 
this?"  In  response  the  man  told  Ruth's  story, 
either  as  he  had  himself  became  acquainted  with  it 
from  common  report,  or  as  it  had  come  out  in  his 
conversation  with  her  in  the  morning,  and  said,  "It 
is  the  Moabitish  damsel  that  came  back  with  Nao- 
mi out  of  the  country  of  Moab,  and  she  said,  I  pray 
you,  let  me  glean  and  gather  after  the  reapers  among 
the  sheaves  ;  so  she  came  and  hath  continued  even 
from  the  morning  until  now  that  she  tarried  a  little 
in  the  house."  On  receiving  this  information  Boaz, 
probably  from  his  kinship  to  Naomi,  perhaps,  also, 
from  a  deeper  and  more  subtle  cause,  became  in- 
terested in  Ruth.  Calling  her  to  him  by  the  kindly 
name  of  daughter,  which  indicated  at  once  his  age 
and  her  youth,  and  his  tender  regard  for  her,  he  re- 
quested her  to  do  all  her  gleaning  on  his  land,  and 
to  keep  fast  by  his  maidens,  who  would  give  to  her 
the  companionship  and  protection  that  always  come 
to  a  woman  from  the  presence  with  her  of  those  of 
her  own  sex.  He  told  her  that  he  had  ordered  the 
young  men  to  treat  her  with  civility  and  respect, 
and  not  to  subject  her  to  the|rough  horse -play^ 
which  was  so  common  on  the  harvest-field,  and  he 
gave  her  the  right  to  quench  her  thirst  at  the  ves- 
sels which  the  young  men  had  drawn — perhaps 
from  the  well  for  the  water  of  which  David  so  longed 
at  a  later  day — for  the  benefit  of  all  the  laborers. 
This  considerate  treatment  at  the  hand  of  a  stran- 
ger went  straight  to  the  heart  of  Ruth,  who  fell  at 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  47 

the  feet  of  her  benefactor,  saying,  "  Why  have  I 
found  grace  in  thine  eyes,  that  thou  shouldest  take 
knowledge  of  me,  seeing  I  am  a  stranger  ?"  But  in 
response  he  gave  her  to  understand  that  her  whole 
recent  history  was  familiar  to  him ;  and  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  dwells  upon  its  details  seems  to  re- 
veal that  he  had  been  deeply  impressed  with  them. 
Indeed,  as  he  enumerates  them  it  appears  as  if  he 
was  gathering  intensity  as  he  proceeded,  until  he 
could  find  no  relief  for  his  feelings  save  in  the 
prayer,  so  simple,  so  beautiful,  so  comprehensive, 
so  appropriate,  "  The  Lord  recompense  thy  work, 
and  a  full  reward  be  given  thee  of  the  Lord  God  of 
Israel,  under  whose  wings  thou  art  come  to  trust." 
There  is  no  conventionality  about  that.  Such  a  sup- 
plication could  come  only  from  a  pious  heart,  as 
well  as  from  a  kindly  disposition,  and  Ruth  was 
equally  sincere  when  she  said,  "Thou  hast  com- 
forted me,  and  thou  hast  spoken  to  the  heart  of 
thine  handmaid,  though  I  be  not  like  unto  one  of 
thine  handmaidens."  "  Alas !  no,"  as  if  she  had 
added,  "but  only  a  widow  and  a  stranger." 

But  now  the  hour  for  refreshment  has  come,  and 
Boaz  invites  her  to  partake  of  the  food  which  had 
been  prepared  for  his  laborers.  This  consisted  of 
"  parched  corn,"  which,  according  to  Dr.  Thomson, 
was  prepared  thus :  "  A  quantity  of  the  best  ears, 
not  too  ripe,  are  plucked  with  the  stalks  attached. 
These  are  tied  in  small  parcels,  a  blazing  fire  is 
kindled  with  dry  grass  and  thorn  -  bushes,  and  the 


4$  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

corn  heads  are  held  in  it  until  the  chaff  is  mostly 
burned  off.  When  the  grain  is  sufficiently  roasted 
it  is  rubbed  out  in  the  hand  and  eaten  as  there  is 
occasion."  *  But  Dr.  Robinson  describes  another 
method.  He  says  :  "  In  the  season  of  harvest  the 
grains  of  wheat  not  yet  fully  dry  and  hard  are 
roasted  in  a  pan  or  on  an  iron  plate,  and  con- 
stitute a  very  palatable  article  of  food,  which  is 
eaten  with  bread  or  instead  of  it."  t  Of  this  Ruth 
ate  and  was  sufficed,  and  left,  or  rather  "had  some- 
thing over,"  which,  as  we  shall  see,  she  carried 
home  in  the  evening  to  Naomi.  Besides  this,  she 
"  dipped  her  morsel  in  the  vinegar,"  which  was  a 
mixture  of  vinegar  and  water  with  a  little  oil,  into 
which  each  reaper  dipped  his  bread  before  eating. 
It  was  genuine  open-air  hospitality — a  picnic,  with 
the  added  zest  of  labor  to  give  it  flavor,  and  the 
joy  of  harvest  to  give  it  gladness.  I  have  seen  and 
shared  in  similar  feasts  many  a  time  in  the  har- 
vest-fields of  the  west  of  Scotland,  and  there  is  a 
spontaneity  in  all  such  mirthfulness  that  contrasts 
most  suggestively  with  the  manufactured  cheerful- 
ness of  a  mere  "garden-party." 

When  the  simple  meal  was  over,  Boaz  lingered 
behind  to  tell  his  young  men  to  let  Ruth  glean,  if 
she  would,  even  among  the  sheaves,  without  re- 
proach, and  to  bid  them  let  fall  purposely  a  few 
handfuls,  that  she  might,  without  any  loss  of  self- 

*  The  Land  and  the  Book,  English  edition,  p.  648. 
f  Biblical  Researches,  vol.  ii.,  p.  50. 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  49 

respect  or  without  any  feeling  of  undue  depend- 
ence, obtain  all  the  more  from  her  work.  Here, 
again,  we  mark  the  delicateness  to  which  we  have 
already  so  frequently  referred.  Many  men  spoil  a 
kindness  by  the  clumsy  way  in  which  they  do  it ; 
but  Boaz  secured  here  that  a  good  service  should 
be  rendered  to  Ruth,  even  when  most  she  felt  that 
she  was  helping  herself.  He  contrived  that  her 
gleanings  should  be  increased,  while  yet  she  did, 
not  know  that  they  were  not  all  the  product  of  her 
own  industry.  So  when  the  even  was  come,  and 
she  beat  out  with  a  stick  the  grain  from  the  ears 
which  she  had  gathered,  she  found  that  she  had 
taken  home  to  Naomi  nearly  a  bushel  of  barley. 

But  now,  leaving  for  another  discourse  the  report 
which  Ruth  gave  to  Naomi  of  her  day's  experiences 
when  she  went  home  in  the  evening,  let  us  take 
with  us  some  practical  lessons  for  our  modern  life 
from  this  deeply  interesting  story. 

See,  then,  in  the  first  place,  how  a  change  of  cir- 
cumstances reveals  character.  What  an  unveiling 
of  Ruth's  real  nature  her  poverty  made  !  Had  she 
been  always  prosperous  we  had  never  thoroughly 
known  her,  and  Naomi  might  never  have  discov- 
ered the  nobleness  that  was  in  her.  The  purity 
of  the  diamond  was  made  manifest  by  the  cutting 
to  which  it  was  subjected.  It  is  not  always  thus, 
however.  Sometimes  reverse  of  fortune  brings  out 
hardness,  cynicism,  almost  misanthropy;  and  those 
who  seemed  in  prosperity  to  be  no  worse  than  the 
3 


50  RUTH  THE   GLEANER. 

average  of  their  neighbors,  develop  under  adver- 
sity into  miserable,  discontented,  suspicious,  and 
uncharitable  people  who  have  not  a  good  word  to 
say  of  anybody,  and  are  at  war  with  themselves, 
with  their  neighbors,  and  with  God  himself.  But 
that  is  only  because  from  the  first  they  have  been 
wrong.  When  they  had  their  prosperity  they  did 
not  thank  God  for  it,  but  traced  it  to  that  in  them- 
selves which  enabled  them  to  rise  in  spite  of  those 
around  them ;  but  now  in  their  adversity,  strangely 
enough,  they  cast  the  blame  on  others  and  on  God, 
and  they  are  so  bitter  in  their  feelings  that  they 
cannot  bring  themselves  to  do  even  that  which 
offers  for  their  own  support.  Alas  for  such !  they 
put  it  almost  out  of  the  power  of  others  to  assist 
them,  and,  wrapped  in  their  own  stolid  defiance, 
they  are  like  the  man  in  the  river  who  cried  out, 
"I  will  be  drowned,  and  nobody  shall  help  me." 
I  know  few  more  pitiable  objects  than  those  whose 
misfortunes  have  thus  petrified  them,  and  I  pray 
God  to  keep  us  all  from  such  a  spirit  as  they  mani- 
fest. But  the  finer  the  nature  is  originally,  the 
more  nobly  does  it  come  out  when  the  individual 
is  required  to  "  take  a  lower  room  "  at  the  world's 
banquet.  Beautifully  has  it  been  said  here  by  a 
young  English  preacher,  whose  early  death  was  a 
deep  sorrow  to  all  who  knew  him  :  "  The  widow 
who,  when  bereavement  has  changed  all  her  fort- 
unes, goes  forth  to  earn  her  children's  bread  with 
her  own  hands;  the  daughter  who,  once  accustomed 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  51 

to  all  that  wealth  could  purchase  and  the  doubtful 
privilege  of  unbroken  ease,  turns  her  accomplish- 
ments into  a  means  of  support  for  her  aged  father; 
these,  and  such  as  these,  reveal  in  new  circum- 
stances new  graces — graces  that  are  sturdy  virtues, 
that  shine  with  an  unborrowed  splendor,  and  are 
beautiful  in  the  sight  of  Heaven.S  There  has  been 
no  humiliation  in  all  this ;  the  brave  toilers  have 
made  the  worst  drudgery  sublime,  and  they  have 
risen  to  a  grander  dignity  than  all  the  world's  worth 
could  confer.  Their  friends  and  neighbors  may 
have  considered  it  misfortune,  and  m.ay  call  it  the 
Valley  of  Humiliation ;  yet  though,  like  Christian, 
they  have  met  an  Apollyon  there,  they,  too,  have 
seen  visions  of  angels,  and  lifted  their  voices  in 
happy  song.  Ah !  there  are  compensations  even  in 
this  world  of  which  we  little  dream,  and  God  sets 
one  thing,  and  often  a  better  thing,  over  against 
another  in  human  life.  Riches  fly,  but  character 
is  developed ;  we  are  compelled  to  work,  and  put 
of  work  spring  our  truest  joys.  Our  life  is  para- 
doxical but  without  contradictions ;  we  are  made 
the  least  that  we  may  become  the  greatest ;  and  the 
Avay  down  is,  with  God  as  guide,  always  the  road  to 
exaltation."* 

But  although  the  change  in  Ruth's  circumstances 
here  was  from  comfort  to  penury,  I  cannot  help 
adding  that  there  is  a  similar  revealing  power,  so 

*  The  Beautiful  Gleaner.  By  Rev.  William  Braden,  pp. 
52,53- 


52  RUTH    THE   GLEANER. 

far  as  character  is  concerned,  in  a  sudden  rise  from 
poverty  to  affluence.  Sometimes  that,  as  in  the 
case  of  Hazael,  has  shown  a  hard,  ambitious  cruelty 
in  a  man,  in  whom  the  existence  of  such  a  disposi- 
tion was  never  even  suspected.  \The  getting  has 
developed  selfishness  rather  than  liberality,  and 
the  possession  of  power  has  given  opportunity  for 
its  arbitrary  exercise.  Then  again,  in  others  it 
has  seemed  to  sweeten  them,  and  to  bring  out 
kindliness.  It  all  depends  on  the  character  of  the 
person  to  begin  with,  and  that  again  depends  on 
the  relationship  between  him  and  God  in  Christ. 
So,  if  we  would  be  prepared  for  anything  that  God's 
providence  may  bring  us ;  if  we  would  not  be  in- 
jured in  that  which  is  our  truest  self,  either  by  sud- 
den prosperity  or  by  unexpected  misfortune,  we 
need  to  look  well  to  our  piety  ;  we  need  to  cultivate 
close  and  intimate  fellowship  with  God ;  we  need 
to  have  the  equalizing  influence  within  us  of  the 
indwelling  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  we  need,  in  one  ex- 
pressive phrase,  to  have  the  soul  ballasted  with 
Christ,  and  then  no  sudden  squall  or  change  of 
wind,  whether  from  affluence  to  poverty  or  from 
poverty  to  affluence,'  will  endanger  or  submerge  us. 
Either  prosperity  or  adversity  will  capsize  us  without 
Him,  but  with  Him  in  the  boat  beside  us  we  are 
always  safe. 

But  now  in  the  second  place  let  us  see  in  the 
fellowship  between  Boaz  and  his  reapers,  a  finger- 
post pointing  to  the  true  solution  of  all  difficulties 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  $3 

between  employers  and  employed.  We  have  heard 
and  read  a  great  deal  on  that  subject  in  these  recent 
days.  Indeed,  little  else  has  been  discussed  among 
us  of  late,  either  in  the  newspapers  or  in  private 
conversation  or  in  public  discourse.  For  the  pres- 
ent, indeed,  we  have  reason  to  congratulate  our- 
selves that  the  premature  explosion  of  that  bomb  in 
Chicago*  has  opened  the  eyes  of  the  community  to 
the  danger  that  is  involved  to  our  property  and  civ- 
ilization from  the  occurrence  of  such  troubles,  and 
unified  the  sentiment  of  the  nation  as  to  the  manner 
in  which  that  kind  of  warfare  is  to  be  dealt  with. 
But  the  real  question  lies  back  behind  the  violence 
to  which  all  strikes  seem  to  be  near  of  kin;  and  the 
anarchism  which  in  all  our  large  cities  is  so  ready 
to  take  advantage,  for  its  own  infamous  purposes,  of 
any  disorder  that  may  arise  and  for  which  the  work- 
ing-men, as  a  class,  are  not  to  be  held  responsible. 
The  real  question  is  this :  How  may  the  state  of 
feeling  between  employers  and  employed,  which  is 
so  apt  to  break  out  into  open  antagonism,  be  re- 
moved and  permanently  made  impossible  ?  Why  is 
it  that  every  little  difference  between  them  as  to 
wages  or  hours  of  labor  leads  on  to  strikes  and  bitter 
estrangement  ?  How  comes  it  that  the  labor  atmos- 
phere is  so  explosive  and  electric  ?  And  what  shall 
be  done  in  the  way  of  remedy  ?  Now  when — apart 
from  recent  provoking  manifestations,  which,  for  the 

*  This  discourse  was  delivered  not  long  after  the  riot  in 
Chicago,  for  which  the  Anarchists  were  tried. 


54  RUTH    THE    GLEANER. 

time  being,  have  tended  to  prejudice  many  against 
the  working-men — we  look  at  this  problem,  we  shall 
find  that  there  have  been  faults  on  both  sides.  If 
they  have  not  been  as  courteous  to  their  employ- 
ers as  his  reapers  were  to  Boaz,  neither  have  their 
employers  always  been  as  courteous  to  them  as 
Boaz  was  to  his  reapers.  And  if  the  employed 
have  been  utterly  neglectful  of  the  principles  of 
political  economy,  their  employers  have  not  always 
remembered  that  political  economy,  though  it  be  a 
real  science,  is  not  mechanics,  and  has  to  do  not 
with  machines,  but  men.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that 
in  recent  strikes  the  cause  of  alienation  has  been 
the  employment  of  men  who  for  some  reason — not 
touching  either  their  character  or  efficiency — have 
been  distasteful  to  the  majority  of  the  workmen ; 
and  it  is  astonishing  that  men  of  intelligence  do  not 
see  that  interference  of  that  sort  is  a  flagrant  in- 
fringement upon  the  liberty  of  other  workmen  to 
earn  their  bread  as  they  can.  It  is  surprising,  too, 
that  they  do  not  realize  that  when  they  strike  they 
terminate  the  contract  between  them  and  their  em- 
ployers, and  so  put  themselves  out  of  court  alto- 
gether, and  forfeit  all  right  even  to  arbitration. 
Then  as  to  the  question  of  hours.  It  is  not  to  be 
denied  that  the  demand  of  ten  hours'  wages  for 
eight  hours'  work  is  one  which,  in  its  blindness, 
either  does  not  or  will  not  perceive  that  it  is  as  im- 
possible to  get  that  really  in  the  long-run  as  it  is  to 
get  five  out  of  twice  two.     For  even  if  the  demand 


RUTH    THE   GLEANER.  55 

be  acceded  to,  then,  when  things  have  adjusted 
themselves  to  the  new  state  of  matters  thereby 
created,  as  they  infallibly  will  do  in  a  very  short 
time,  it  will  be  found  that  they  have  simply  added 
one-fifth  to  the  price  of  everything  which  they  have 
to  buy,  and  that  is  the  same  as  saying  that  the  pur- 
chasing power  of  their  wages — nominally  the  same 
in  dollars  and  cents — will  then  be  reduced  by  one- 
fifth.  Really,  that  is  substantially  what  they  are 
bringing  upon  themselves — nay,  what  they  are  eager- 
ly seeking,  with  all  the  added  expense  and  danger 
of  their  strikes.  Much,  therefore,  might  be  accom- 
plished by  spreading  a  little  more  widely  among 
them  the  knowledge  of  these  principles,  which  are 
as  simple  as  the  alphabet,  but  as  inexorable  as  the 
law  of  gravitation. 

But  still  the  question  arises,  How  shall  we  heal 
the  state  of  feeling  out  of  which  this  habit  of  look- 
ing upon  each  other  as  natural  enemies  has  grown 
up  between  employers  and  employed.?  Now,  in 
answer,  some  have  suggested  arbitration ;  some 
have  exhorted  the  working-men  to  make  up  for  the 
want  of  capital  in  the  hands  of  one  by  co-operation 
among  themselves,  so  that  they  may  become  them- 
selves competitors  of  the  employers ;  and  some 
have  proposed  that,  by  means  like  those  suggested 
by  Professor  Ely,  of  Baltimore,  the  employed  should 
be  given  a  share  of  the  profits  of  the  employers, 
though  that  would  be  one-sided  if  they  were  not 
also  called  upon  to  make  up  a  share  of  the  losses 


56  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

— but,  SO  far  as  I  have  seen,  few  have  spoken 
about  that.  Now,  of  course,  a  great  deal  can  be 
said  in  favor  of  such  schemes  as  these ;  but  for  the 
present  they  all  seem  to  me  alike  impracticably, 
because  they  all  require  for  their  successful  opera- 
tion a  disposition  towards  each  other  which  is  rad- 
ically different  from  that  which  has  existed  for  a 
considerable  time  between  them.  If  we  had  that 
changed,  the  problem  would  be  more  manageable. 
I  am  not  sure,  indeed,  but  that  the  simple  changing 
of  that  would  remove  the  problem  altogether.  But 
how  are  we  to  change  that  ?  How  shall  we  remove 
all  bitterness  out  of  the  hearts  of  employers  towards 
their  employed,  and  how  shall  we  remove  out  of  the 
hearts  of  the  employed  all  envy  of  their  employers  ? 
To  that  I  have  but  one  ansVver,  The  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  broke  down  the  middle  wall  between  Jews 
and  Gentiles,  and  only  He  can  reconcile^^not  su- 
perficially, but  really  and  through  and  through — 
employers  and  employed.  Boaz  and  his  reapers 
belonged  to  the  same  commonwealth  of  Israel,  and 
were  heirs  of  the  same  covenant  of  promise.  They 
were  children  of  the  same  household  of  faith,  and 
so  they  regarded  each  other  as  brethren.  That  was 
what  kept  this  greeting  from  degenerating  into  a 
mere  formality.  That  was  what  produced  their 
mutual  kindliness  for  each  other.  And  in  the  same 
way,  when  employers  and  employed  shall  recognize 
their  common  brotherhood  to  Christ,  and  feel  that 
in  dealing  with  each  other  they  are  dealing  with 


RUTH   THE    GLEANER.  57 

Christ,  then  and  then  only  shall  we  get  rid  of  that 
mutual  suspicion  of  each  other  which  is  the  soil 
wherein  all  these  roots  of  bitterness  spring  up.  I 
hear,  therefore,  in  these  labor  troubles  a  new  and 
louder  call  to  the  churches  of  our  land  to  prosecute 
with  vigor  the  work  of  home  evangelization,  not 
only  among  the  working- people,  but  also  among 
their  employers.  I  emphasize  that  last  clause, 
"but  also  among  their  employers,"  for  they  need  it 
just  as  much  as  their  workmen.  It  is  common,  I 
fear,  to  think  that  evangelization  is  required  only 
for  the  masses  of  the  employed,  but  that  is  a  delu- 
sion. There  are  proportionately  as  many  unbelievers 
in  the  gospel  among  the  capitalists  as  there  are 
among  the  laborers.  I  fear  that,  in  proportion  to 
the  numbers  of  both,  there  are  more,  and,  as  a  rule, 
employers  are  far  too  indifferent  to  the  gospel.  They 
are  not  sufficiently  under  its  power,  and  perhaps  the 
inkling  of  what  atheistic  socialism  would  do  if  it 
could,  which  these  last  weeks  have  given,  may  help 
to  quicken  them  to  a  sense  of  the  importance  of  their 
identifying  themselves  more  thoroughly  with  Christ. 
But  only  in  the  meeting  of  both  in  Christ  will  the 
solvent  of  this  problem  be  found,  and  we  must  seek 
so  to  deal  with  both  as  to  bring  that  about.  For 
when  that  is  reached  there  will  be  courtesy  and 
kindliness  in  their  intercourse.  They  will  not  be 
afraid  of  each  other,  neither  will  they  be  suspicious 
of  each  other,  but  they  will  love  as  brethren,  and 
selfishness  will  cease  to  be  the  main-spring  of  their 
3* 


58  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

conduct.  This  has  been  demonstrated  very  clear- 
ly in-  the  case  of  individual  establishments.  I  have 
not  heard  of  any  strikes  or  bitterness  at  St.  Johns- 
bury,  Vermont,  where  masters  and  men  are  office- 
bearers in  the  same  church,  and  brethren  at  the 
same  communion-table.  And  that  is  by  no  means 
a  solitary  instance.  Conversing  not  long  ago  with 
the  president  of  a  railway  who  had  just  been  be- 
reaved of  his  wife,  I  learned  from  him  that  some 
of  the  most  touching  letters  which  he  had  received 
at  the  time  of  his  trial  came  from  surface-men  on 
the  line.  Wherever  he  had  gone  he  had  sought  to 
show  himself  friendly  to  his  men,  and  so  they  could 
not  help  expressing  sympathy  with  him.  Nothing 
approaching  to  any  feeling  of  suspiciousness  had 
ever  come  between  them,  and  he  has  no  fear  of  a 
strike  among  them.  Give  us  this  common  Chris- 
tianity between  them,  and  we  may  trust  that,  either 
to  prevent  any  differences  or  to  settle  them  peace- 
fully when  they  do  arise.  Nothing  else  will  do  it. 
But  if  you  have  that,  any  feasible  plan  will  be  work- 
able. "He  is  our  peace."  Oh,  when  shall  the 
different  classes  among  us  find  out  that.^*  Come 
forth  out  of  Thy  royal  chamber,  O  Thou  living 
Christ !  In  the  triumph  of  Thy  love  bring  employ- 
er and  employed  together  to  Thy  feet,  that  they 
may  choose  Thee  for  the  great  arbitrator  between 
them,  and  Thy  decisions,  being  founded  in  love  as 
well  as  justice,  shall  be  willingly  accepted  by  them 
both. 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER,  59 

I  had  intended  to  add  a  word  on  the  beautiful 
prayer  of  Boaz  for  Ruth — "The  Lord  recompense 
thy  work,  and  a  full  reward  be  given  thee  of  the 
Lord  God  of  Israel,  under  whose  wings  thou  hast 
come  to  trust " — ^but  I  must  forbear.  Let  me  only 
commend  to  you  all  the  protection  of  these  out- 
spread wings.  You  must  go  to  trust  somewhere. 
You  are  now  trusting  in  something.  Whither  have 
'you  gone  ?  In  what  are  you  trusting?  No  wings 
but  God's  can  cover  you  in  the  time  of  trial  and  in 
the  day  of  judgment.  Therefore,  get  beneath  them 
now.  This  is  your  opportunity.  Get  beneath 
them  710W,  lest  a  day  should  come  when  He  shall 
say,  "  How  often  would  I  have  gathered  thee  as  a 
hen  doth  gather  her  brood  under  her  wings,  and  ye 
would  not  ?  Behold,  now,  your  house  is  left  unto 
you  desolate." 


IV. 

THE  THRESHING-FLOOR. 

Chapter  II.,  18— III.,  18. 

Naomi  had  probably  an  anxious  day  of  it,  as 
she  sat  at  home,  wondering  how  her  daughter-in- 
law  was  faring  among  strangers  in  the  harvest- 
field.  But  when  she  saw  Ruth  return  at  even-tide 
with  an  epha  of  barley  in  her  mantle  and  a  look 


6o  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

of  satisfaction  on  her  face,  she  did  not  need  to  ask 
how  she  had  got  on,  for  she  knew  at  once  that 
"  the  Unes  had  fallen  unto  her  in  pleasant  places." 
We  can  easily  imagine  with  what  pride  the  daugh- 
ter laid  her  burden  down  at  the  mother's  feet,  and 
with  what  delight  she  brought  forth  the  surplus  of 
the  parched  corn  which  Boaz  had  given  her  at 
noon,  and  which  she  had  so  thoughtfully  reserved 
as  a  treat  for  the  solitary  one  whom  she  had  left  at 
home.  We  can  easily,  also,  fill  in  the  outline  which 
the  sacred  writer  has  given  us  of  the  mother's  joy 
as,  looking  at  the  result  of  her  daughter's  exertions, 
she  broke  out  into  ejaculations  of  pleased  surprise, 
and  ran  on  into  a  series  of  questions  without  wait- 
ing for  an  answer  to  any  one  of  them ;  finding  at 
length  the  fitting  climax  to  her  feelings  in  a  ben- 
ediction of  her  benefactor.  It  was  as  if  she  had 
said :  "  Well  done,  my  daughter !  Who  could  have 
expected  anything  like  this  1  Where  did  you  get  all 
that  barley  ?  And  the  parched  corn,  too — how  good 
it  is!  Surely,  they  must  have  been  particularly 
kind  to  you.  Whose  part  of  the  field  were  you  in  ? 
who  did  you  glean  with?  He  must  have  taken 
special  notice  of  you,  and,  whoever  he  was,  may  a 
blessing  rest  on  him  for  his  goodness.  It  may  have 
been  a  little  thing  to  him,  but  it  has  been  a  great 
deal  to  you  and  to  me." 

Then,  when  Ruth  had  rested  a  little,  and  Naomi's 
effusiveness  gave  her  an  opportunity  to  speak,  she 
told  that  the  man  on  whose  part  of  the  field  she  had 


RUTH   THE    GLEANER.  6 1 

gleaned  was  Boaz.  In  a  moment  it  flashed  upon  Na- 
omi's memor)'  that  Boaz  was  a  kinsman  of  EUmelech 
— was,  in  fact,  one  of  the  Goelim,  or  redeemers,  on 
whom  it  might  devolve,  according  to  the  law  of 
Moses,  to  buy  the  land  which  had  belonged  to  her 
deceased  husband,  and  which,  under  the  pressure 
of  circumstances,  she  would  now  have  to  sell  in  or- 
der to  get  the  means  of  support.  This  being  the 
case,  Naomi  thought  she  saw  the  motive  of  Boaz 
in  showing  such  kindness  to  Ruth,  and  so  the  ben- 
ediction, which  had  before  been  general  and  imper- 
sonal, is  repeated  by  her  with  definite  reference  to 
him,  for  she  says  : ,"  Blessed  of  Jehovah  be  he,  who 
hath  not  left  off  his  kindness  to  the  living  and  to 
the  dead ;"  that  is,  who  hath  shown  his  generosity 
to  the  living,  and  through  that  hath  made  manifest 
his  continued  respect  for  the  memory  of  the  dead. 
She  recognized  the  providence  which  had  conduct- 
ed Ruth  to  his  part  of  the  field;  and  hearing  of 
his  treatment  of  Ruth,  and  of  his  request  that 
she  should  keep  fast  by  his  young  men  until  the 
close  of  his  harvest,  she  probably  discerned  in  this 
the  beginning  of  the  end  of  all  their  troubles, 
though  it  is  hardly  likely  that  as  yet  she  had  any 
definite  conception  of  the  precise  manner  in  which 
they  were  to  be  terminated.  But  whatever  were 
her  motives,  she  heartily  urged  Ruth  to  accept  the 
invitation  of  Boaz ,  and  thus  it  came  about  that  all 
through  the  time  of  harvest,  which  lasted  for  at 
least  two  or  three  weeks,  Ruth  kept  close  by  the 


62  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

maidens  of  Boaz  to  glean  by  day,  and  returned  at 
evening  to  the  abode  of  Naomi,  to  cheer  her  by 
her  nightly  reports  of  the  day's  doings,  given  by 
the  one  in  the  open  frankness  of  affection,  and 
commented  on  by  the  other  with  the  wisdom  of 
experience. 

But  when  the  harvest  was  finished,  the  old  ques- 
tion of  "  What  shall  we  do  now  ?"  had  to  be  con- 
fronted ;  and  this  time  Naomi  took  the  initiative, 
for  now  she  thought  she  saw  the  prospect  of  a  life 
settlement  for  Ruth.  It  is  beautiful  to  mark  the 
unselfishness  of  each  of  these  women,  or  rather 
their  unselfish  consideration  of  each  by  the  other. 
As  Cassell  has  said :  "While  the  women  are  in  dis- 
tress it  is  Ruth  that  takes  the  initiative ;  now  when 
hope  grows  large  it  is  Naomi.  When  hardship  was 
to  be  endured,  the  mother  submitted  her  will  to  the 
daughter,  for  Ruth  was  not  sent  to  glean  but  went 
of  her  own  accord ;  now,  when  the  endeavor  is  to 
secure  the  joy  and  happiness  held  out  in  prospect, 
the  daughter  yields  in  all  things  to  the  direction  of 
the  mother.  The  thought  of  labor  for  the  mother 
originates  with  the  daughter,  but  it  is  the  mother 
who  forms  plans  for  the  happiness  of  the  daugh- 
ter."* Naomi  had  set  her  heart  on  finding  rest  for 
Ruth  in  the  house  of  a  husband,  and  that  husband 
no  other  than  Boaz.  With  this  object  in  view,  she 
unfolds  a  plan  which  she  desires  Ruth  to  follow  in 

*  Lange,  in  loco. 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  6^ 

every  particular.  In  the  simple  narrative  it  is  given 
thus :  "  And  now  is  not  Boaz  of  our  kindred,  with 
whose  maidens  thou  wast  ?  Behold,  he  winnoweth 
barley  to-night  in  the  threshing-floor.  Wash  thy- 
self therefore,  and  anoint  thee,  and  put  thy  raiment 
upon  thee,  and  get  thee  down  to  the  floor:  but 
make  not  thyself  known  unto  the  man,  until  he 
shall  have  done  eating  and  drinking.  And  it  shall 
be,  when  he  lieth  down,  that  thou  shalt  mark  the 
place  where  he  shall  lie,  and  thou  shalt  go  in,  and 
uncover  his  feet,  and  lay  thee  down ,  and  he  will 
tell  thee  what  thou  shalt  do." 

Now  all  this,  it  must  be  confessed,  seems  to  us, 
with  our  modem  ideas,  not  only  exceedingly  improp- 
er, but  also  terribly  hazardous.  It  must  be  admitted, 
too,  that,  judged  even  by  the  conventionality  of 
those  almost  patriarchal  times,  it  was  unusual,  and, 
as  the  words  of  Boaz  himself  make  evident,  would 
have  been  compromising  to  the  reputation  of  both 
if  it  had  been  known.  But  in  order  to  a  right  esti- 
mate of  its  nature  we  must  take  in  all  that  can  be 
said  upon  the  other  side. 

We  must  remember,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
proposal  was  made  by  Naomi,  whose  whole  charac- 
ter, as  it  comes  out  in  this  book,  was  marked  by  de- 
vout reverence  towards  God  and  purity  towards 
man,  and  to  whom  the  honor  of  Ruth  was  as  dear 
as  her  own.  We  cannot,  therefore,  believe  that  she 
would  wilfully  do  that  which  would  endanger  her 
reputation.     That  would  have  been  but  a  poor  re- 


64  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

turn  for  all  the  self-sacrifice  that  Ruth  had  mani- 
fested on  her  behalf. 

Again,  we  must  take  it  for  granted  that  she  knew 
the  sort  of  man  Boaz  was.  Probably  in  the  years 
gone  by  he  had  been  the  companion  and  friend  of 
her  husband,  and  she  had  then  had  means  of  judg- 
ing of  his  character.  Then,  since  her  return  she 
had  been  watching  him,  and  perhaps  she  felt  that 
she  could  trust  Ruth  in  his  hands.  Furthermore, 
we  must  believe  that  there  had  been  lying  behind 
all  this  an  interesting  history  which  is  here  unwrit- 
ten, and  which  had  come  out  during  these  harvest 
weeks  in  the  evening  talks  of  Ruth  after  her  return 
from  the  field,  and,  perhaps,  also,  in  the  visits  of 
Boaz,  on  occasions,  at  her  humble  home.  She  had 
been  taking  notes  very  diligently  all  the  time,  and  it 
may  be  that  the  pensive  absent-mindedness  of  her 
daughter,  now  that  the  gleaning  season  was  over, 
had  revealed  to  her  that  she  was  something  else 
than  indifferent  to  her  benefactor ;  while,  perhaps, 
there  were  indications  also  on  the  part  of  Boaz  that 
his  interest  in  Ruth  was  more  tender  than  that  of 
mere  kindness  and  compassion. 

But  more  than  all,  we  must  give  full  weight  to  the 
fact  that  Boaz  was  one  of  EUmelech's  Goelim,  and  to 
the  claim  which  law  and  custom  gave  to  her  on  him 
in  that  capacity.  There  were  three  duties  which  de- 
volved upon  the  Goel,  or  kinsman  redeemer.  These 
may  be  succinctly  described  as  follows :  When  an 
Israelite,  through  poverty,  sold  his  inheritance  and 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  65 

was  unable  to  redeem  it,  it  devolved  upon  his 
Goel  to  purchase  it.  Again,  when  an  Israelite  had 
wronged  any  one  and  sought  to  make  restitution, 
but  found  that  the  party  whom  he  had  wronged 
was  dead  without  leaving  a  son,  it  fell  to  the  next 
of  kin  of  the  injured  party  to  represent  him  and  re- 
ceive the  reparation.  Finally,  when  a  man  was 
foully  murdered,  it  fell  to  the  Goel  or  next  of  kin, 
subject  to  the  provisions  laid  down  in  connection 
with  the  Cities  of  Refuge,  to  execute  justice  on  the 
murderer,  and  hence  he  was  called  the  Avenger  of 
Blood. 

But  along  with  these  duties  devolved  on  the  Goel 
by  law,  others  seemed  to  have  been  required  of  him 
by  custom ;  for,  when  there  was  no  one  else  to  do  it, 
he  came  to  be  looked  to  for  the  carrying  out  of  the 
provisions  of  what  is  called  the  Levirate  law.  That 
statute  enjoined  that  when  a  man  died  without  leav- 
ing children,  his  brother  should  marry  the  widow, 
and  the  first-bom  of  that  marriage  should  be  ac- 
counted the  child  of  the  deceased.  But  when  there 
was  no  brother-in-law,  custom  looked  to  the  Goel 
to  take  his  place.  The  law  did  not  absolutely  re- 
quire it,  but  public  opinion  did — though  it  did  not 
put  the  repudiation  of  the  widow's  claim  by  the 
Goel  upon  the  same  plane  of  dishonor  as  it  did  that 
of  the  brother-in-law.  If  the  brother-in-law  refused 
to  marry  his  sister-in-law,  he  was  subjected  to  insult 
at  her  hands  by  her  plucking  off  his  shoe  and  spit- 
ting in  his  face  in  the  gate  of  the  city — acts  which 


66  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

were  equivalent  among  us  Western  people  to  the 
knocking  of  a  man's  hat  over  his  eyes  on  the  Ex- 
change— and  the  subjecting  of  him,  besides,  to  the 
vilest  indignity.  In  the  case  of  a  kinsman  not  so 
near  as  the  brother,  there  was  indeed  no  specific 
statute  on  the  subject,  but  custom  had  sanctioned 
a  kind  of  amalgamation  of  the  law  relating  to  the 
Levirate  marriage,  with  that  concerning  the  Goel, 
or  redeemer ;  so  that,  as  Alexander  has  said,  "  The 
Goel  had  a  right  to  purchase  the  land,  but  in  so 
doing  came  under  an  obligation  from  custom  to 
marry  the  widow  of  the  deceased  owner ;  and  the 
brother-in-law  (Levir)  was  bound  to  marry  the  widow 
of  his  deceased  brother,  which  involved,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  the  redemption  of  his  property  if  he  had 
sold  it."  * 

Now,  if  I  have  succeeded  in  making  the  matter 
plain  to  you,  it  will  be  apparent  that  Boaz,  as  a  Goel 
of  Elimelech,  had  a  right  by  law  to  redeem  his  prop- 
erty, and  that,  according  to  the  custom,  the  ex- 
ercise of  that  right  involved  on  his  part,  also,  the 
marriage  of  Naomi.  But  Naomi  transferred  her 
claim  to  Ruth,  and  the  question  she  had  to  solve 
was  how  to  bring  that  before  the  notice  of  Boaz, 
It  was  not  his  part  in  such  a  case  to  offer.  He  had 
to  wait  until  he  was  requested  to  act;  and  this 
plan  was  formed  by  Naomi  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  him  to  prompt  and  decisive  action  in  the 
case. 

*  Alexander's  Kitto,  s.  v.  "  Kinsman." 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  67 

But  when  all  is  said  that  can  be  said  on  her  be- 
half, I  fully  appreciate  and  indorse  the  words  of 
Kitto,  when  he  thus  writes,  "  We  still  think,  how- 
ever, that  the  occasion  for  making  this  demand  was 
unusual,  and,  to  a  certain  degree,  indiscreet.  This 
may  be  gathered  from  the  anxiety  which  Boaz  him- 
self eventually  expressed,  while  doing  the  utmost 
honor  to  her  character  and  motives,  that  it  should 
not  be  known  that  a  woman  had  been  there.  He 
must  have  feared  that  evil  tongues  might  miscon- 
strue, to  his  and  her  discredit,  a  proceeding  far  from 
evil  when  rightly  understood.  It  is  not  unlikely 
that  when  this  matter  had  been  first  suggested  by 
Naomi,  Ruth,  as  a  stranger,  had  shrunk  from  mak- 
ing this  claim  publicly  in  the  harvest-field,  and  that 
Naomi  had,  therefore,  to  spare  her  in  that  respect, 
devised  this  mode  of  enabling  her  to  do  so  in  pri- 
vate, in  which  she  would  find  less  difficulty,  seeing 
that  Boaz  had  already  w^on  her  confidence  by  his 
fatherly  consideration  for  her.  It  may  be  that  de- 
sire to  evade  one  difficulty  somewhat  blinded  this 
good  woman  to  the  danger  that  may  have  lurked 
in  the  other  alternative."*  Keeping,  then,  these 
considerations  in  mind,  we  may  without  any  diffi- 
culty thread  our  way  through  the  rest  of  the  story. 

The  threshing-floor  in  those  times,  as,  indeed, 
still  in  the  East,  was  in  the  immediate  neighbor- 
hood of  the  harvest-field.     It  was  a  level  area,  the 

*  Daily  Bible  Illustrations,  vol.  iii. ,  p.  40. 


68  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

ground  of  which  was  trodden  into  hardness,  and 
the  grain  was  threshed,  either  by  the  dragging  over 
it  of  a  heavy  slab  called  jnowrej,  or  by  the  tram- 
pling of  cattle.  Then  the  winnowing  was  accom- 
plished by  throwing  up  the  grain  with  a  fork  against 
the  wind ;  and  that  operation  was  frequently  per- 
formed at  night  to  get  the  benefit  of  the  evening 
breeze.  At  such  times,  also,  it  was  usual  either  for 
the  owner  of  the  field  or  some  of  his  men  to  sleep 
on  the  floor,  in  order  that  he  might  be  ready  to 
give  the  alarm  if  any  robbers  should  come  to  steal 
from  him  the  product  of  his  industry.  Thus  Dr. 
Edward  Robinson,  speaking  of  Hebron,  says,  "  Here 
we  needed  no  guard  around  our  tent.  The  mowers 
of  the  crops  came  every  night  and  slept  upon 
their  threshing-floors  to  guard  them,  and  this  we 
had  found  to  be  universal  in  all  the  region  of  Gaza. 
We  were  in  the  midst  of  scenes  precisely  like  those 
of  the  Book  of  Ruth,  when  Boaz  winnowed  barley 
in  his  threshing-floor,  and  laid  himself  down  at 
night  to  guard  the  heap  of  com."*  And  Dr. 
Thomson  tells  us  that  he  has  "on  various  occa- 
sions seen  the  mowers  sleeping  on  the  summer 
threshing-floors  to  prevent  stealing,  just  as  the 
wealthy  Boaz  did  when  Ruth  came  to  him."  He 
adds  that  "  though  it  is  not  customary  for  women 
to  sleep  at  those  floors,  and  to  do  so  would  produce 
the  same  unfavorable  impression  which  Boaz  ap- 

*  Biblical  Researches,  vol.  ii.,  p.  446. 


RUTH    THE   GLEANER.  69 

prehended,  yet  it  is  not  unusual  for  husband,  wife, 
and  all  the  family  to  encamp  at  the  threshing-floor 
and  remain  until  the  harvest  is  over,"  * 

These  particulars  will  enable  us  to  realize  the 
whole  circumstances,  as  Ruth  followed  implicitly 
the  instructions  of  her  mother-in-law.  Watching 
until  Boaz  was  fast  asleep,  she  went  and  lay  down 
at  his  feet.  But  when  he  became  aware  of  her  pres- 
ence he  started  up,  and  said,  "  Who  art  thou  ?" 
Whereupon  she  answered,  "  I  am  Ruth  thine  hand- 
maid :  spread  thy  skirt,"  or  rather  spread  thy  wings 
— for  there  is  no  reference  to  the  cover  which  she 
had  taken  from  his  feet — but  rather  she  uses  the 
figure  of  the  bird  which  Boaz  had  already  employed 
in  speaking  to  her  of  Jehovah — spread  thy  wings 
over  thine  handmaid  for  thou  art  a  Goel,  or  kinsman 
redeemer.  "  Take  me  under  thy  protection  as  thy 
wife."  That  Was  the  formal  claim  of  her  words, 
and  Boaz  at  once  understood  them  in  that  sense, 
for  he  said,  "  Blessed  be  thou  of  Jehovah  my  daugh- 
ter: for  thou  hast  showed  more  kindness  in  the 
latter  end  than  at  the  beginning,  inasmuch  as  thou 
followedst  not  young  men  whether  poor  or  rich." 
That  is  to  say,  "  This  act  of  thine  is  a  greater  kind- 
ness to  Naomi  than  was  even  thy  leaving  of  Moab 
for  her  sake ;  for  thou  hast  deliberately  preferred 
to  stand  in  Naomi's  place,  and  to  claim  from  the 
Goel  thy  right  at  his  hands,  in  order  that '  the  name 

*   Tlie  Land  and  the  Book,  as  before,  pp.  64S,  649. 


70  RUTH  THE  GLEANER, 

of  the  dead  be  not  cut  off  from  among  his  brethren, 
and  from  the  gate  of  his  place,'  and  because  thou 
hast  thus  merged  thyself  in  the  house  and  lineage 
of  Elimelech,  blessed  be  thou  of  Jehovah.".  Then 
he  pledged  himself  to  do  all  that  she  required,  be- 
cause all  the  gats  of  his  people  knew  that  she  was 
a  worthy  woman. 

But  there  was  still  one  obstacle  in  the  way,  for 
though  he  was  a  Goel  he  was  not  the  Goel.  There 
was  a  kinsman  nearer  to  Elimelech  than  he,  and 
nothing  could  be  done  by  Boaz  until  that  relative 
had  repudiated.  He  promised,  therefore,  that  in 
the  morning  he  would  bring  the  matter  before  that 
other,  and  if  he  would  perform  the  kinsman's  part, 
well  and  good,  let  him  do  it ;  but  if  he  would  not, 
then  Boaz  would  take  his  place,  and  this  assur- 
ance he  confirmed  with  an  oath,  "as  Jehovah  liv- 
eth."  Then  in  the  morning,  before  one  could  dis- 
cern another,  he  sent  her  away  to  Naomi,  and  that 
her  mother  might  have  the  assurance  of  his  good- 
will, even  although  her  plan  had  not  gone  altogether 
as  she  had  expected,  he  sent  with  her  six  measures 
of  barley,  which  he  scooped  into  her  mantle. 

On  her  return,  Naomi  met  her  with  the  singular 
yet  suggestive  question,  "  W/io  art  thou,  my  daugh- 
ter ?"  as  if  she  had  said,  Art  thou  still  the  widow  of 
Mahlon,*  or  art  thou  now  the  betrothed  of  Boaz  ? 
and  in  answer  Ruth  told  her  all  she  had  to  tell,  which, 

*  See  chapter  iv.,  lo. 


RUTH   THE    GLEANER.  71 

when  Naomi  heard,  she  knew  how  to  interpret,  for 
she  said,  "  Sit  still  my  daughter  until  thou  know  how 
the  matter  will  fall :  for  the  man  will  not  rest  until  he 
have  finished  the  thing  this  day."  How  true  this  fore- 
cast was,  and  what  came  out  of  the  intervention  of 
Boaz,  we  shall  see  in  our  next  discourse ;  mean- 
while let  us  ourselves  become  gleaners,  and  gather 
up  a  few  suggestive  lessons  from  this  fruitful  field. 
And,  in  the  first  place,  let  me  draw  your  atten- 
tion to  the  general  wholesomeness  and  helpfulness 
of  evening  confidences  among  the  members  of  the 
same  household  when  the  labors  of  the  day  are 
done.  Few  things  in  this  most  interesting  story 
are  more  beautiful  than  the  frank  and  simple  talks 
between  Naomi  and  Ruth,  in  the  confidence  of  do- 
mestic abandon,  before  they  retired  for  the  night. 
The  daughter  then  made  the  mother  sharer  in  all 
her  experiences  throughout  the  day,  and  the  moth- 
er followed  up  the  communication  with  practical 
suggestions  for  the  morrow.  One  needs  not  to  ap- 
prove in  every  particular  the  counsels  which  Naomi 
gave,  before  he  can  see  the  value  of  such  a  house- 
hold custom ;  and  if  I  may  speak  alike  from  obser- 
vation and  experience,  I  would  say  that  the  hapn 
piest  hours  of  home  life  are  those  in  which  parents 
and  grown-up  children  sit  together  in  winter  by  the 
cheerful  fire,  and  in  summer  in  the  cool,  dim  twi- 
light, and  tell  each  other  where  they  have  gleaned, 
and  with  whom,  and  with  what  success  they  have 
labored  throughout  the  day.     Nor  is  the  happiness 


72  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

of  such  fellowship  all  the  good  that  there  is  in  it. 
It  unifies  the  household,  giving  to  all  a  deep  and 
living  interest  in  the  labors  and  success  of  each, 
and  so  helping  to  counteract  that  tendency  to  utter 
individualism  which  is  one  of  the  greatest  evils  of 
our  modern  life.  Too  often  the  members  of  the 
same  household  are  nothing  more  to  each  other 
than  sharers  of  the  same  abode.  They  go  outside 
to  have  their  confidences  with  strangers,  and  fre- 
quently parents  and  brothers  and  sisters  are  among 
the  last  to  know  of  any  unusual  experience  through 
which  they  have  been  brought.  Thus  the  home 
becomes  little  more  than  a  small  hotel,  and  the  help- 
ful counsel  of  the  parents  and  the  other  members 
of  the  family  is  entirely  lost.  Sure  I  am  that  many 
of  the  young  people  who  go  astray  in  modern  busi- 
ness or  society  might  have  been  kept  from  evil 
courses  if  only  they  had  utilized  the  blessing  of 
this  home  cabinet;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
hearts  of  parents  would  have  been  kept  fresh  and 
healthy  if  their  children  had  but  made  them  par- 
takers of  the  details  of  their  day's  doings.  The 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world  for  a  little  child  is 
to  tell  where  he  has  been,  and  what  he  has  been 
about ;  and  when  he  grows  up  into  manhood  there 
is  something  wrong  with  him,  or  something  wrong 
at  home,  if  that  healthy  custom  is  abandoned. 
Either  he  has  begun  to  go  to  places  of  which  he  is 
ashamed  to  speak,  or  his  parents  and  the  other 
members  of  the  household  have  not  been  careful 


RUTH    THE    GLEANER.  73 

to  maintain  the  happiness  of  home  to  such  a  de- 
gree that  it  will  be  in  his  estimation  more  attractive 
than  all  other  localities.  Let  me  urge,  therefore, 
upon  those  who,  like  Ruth,  must  be  away  all  the 
day,  to  engage  in  nothing  and  to  go  to  no  place  of 
which  they  would  be  ashamed  to  speak  in  the  even- 
ing to  father  or  mother  or  sisters;  and  let  me  en- 
treat the  parents  and  members  of  families  generally 
to  vie  with  each  other  in  their  efforts  to  make  home 
happy  for  those  who  are  pulling  at  the  business  oar, 
and  "toiling  in  rowing"  all  the  day.  Sisters,  why 
should  you  reserve  your  winning  smiles  and  pa- 
tient attention  and  willing  practice  of  accomplish- 
ments for  the  party  outside,  or  for  the  casual  visit- 
ors who  come  to  call  upon  you,  and  show  yourselves 
petulant,  discourteous,  disobliging,  and  generally  un- 
amiable  to  your  own  brothers  ?  Do  you  not  real- 
ize that  much  of  the  moulding  of  their  characters 
is  in  your  hands  ?  and  if  they  fall  into  evil  courses, 
what  will  you  have  to  say  at  last  when  the  Lord 
asks  you,  "  Where  are  your  brothers  ?"  Perhaps  if 
you  had  cared  to  make  yourself  attractive  to  them, 
they  might  not  now  have  been  wanderers  from  their 
fathers'  houses. 

And  you,  young  men,  who  are  living  at  home, 
be  thankful  that  you  have  still  a  father  and  a 
mother  to  whom  you  can  go  with  all  your  con- 
cerns, and  who  are  still  able  and  willing  to  be 
your  advisers.  Do  not  despise  their  wisdom ;  do 
not  trample  upon  their  love.     You  will  never  know 


74  RUTH    THE    GLEANER. 

the  worth  of  them  until  you  lose  them ;  and  then 
O  what  a  misery  it  will  be  to  you  to  reflect  that 
you  slighted  their  counsel  and  made  light  of  their 
affection  while  they  lived. 

Parents,  you,  too,  have  a  solemn  responsibility 
here.  Do  not  allow  yourselves  even  to  seem  to  be 
troubled  when  your  young  people  come  to  you  for 
advice.  Do  not  account  their  affairs  as  too  insignif- 
icant for  you  to  be  interested  in  ;  hear  them  with  pa- 
tient, real,  lonng,  attention,  and  give  them  the  best 
wisdom  you  can  command.  Encourage  them  to 
come  to  you  with  their  concerns,  and  beware  of  draw- 
ing the  cord  of  authority  so  tight  that  it  will  snap,  and 
leave  you  without  so  much  as  influence.  Remember 
that  as  young  people  grow  up  to  manhood  and  wom- 
anhood they  must  be  guided  rather  than  governed  by 
you ;  and  if  you  would  gain  their  confidences  and 
keep  them,  you  will  succeed  best  when  you  seem  least 
eager  to  demand  them  as  of  right.  As  one  has  very 
wisely  said  :  "  Young  men  and  women,  conscious  of 
growing  personal  responsibility,  will  not  tolerate  be- 
ing treated  as  mere  children,  and  will  fret  against 
what  appear  to  them  as  unnecessary  restraints.  But 
it  is  possible  by  wise  management  to  obtain  all  de- 
sirable information  without  a  display  of  authority, 
and  without  arousing  antagonism.  Knowing  the  ten- 
der interest  of  their  parents'  hearts  in  all  their  expe- 
riences, sons  and  daughters  will  love  to  return  home 
and  voluntarily  tell  all  the  story  of  the  day,  inci- 
dents humorous,  vexing,  or  encouraging,  and  those 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  75 

fireside  reviews  of  life  will  be  the  most  delightful 
part  of  their  time."  * 

Let  me  point  out  to  you  now,  in  the  second  place, 
the  true  ideal  of  marriage.  Naomi  put  it  precisely 
right  when  she  said  to  Ruth  :  *•  Shall  I  not  seek 
rest  for  thee,  that  it  may  be  well  with  thee  ?"  The 
rest  of  the  wife  should  be  in  the  affection  of  the 
husband,  and  the  rest  of  the  husband  should  be  in 
the  love  of  the  wife.  Each  should  have  comfort  in 
the  support  and  confidence  of  the  other.  The  hus- 
band should  be  always  sure  of  the  sympathy  and 
co-operation  of  the  wife  ;  and  the  wife  should  be 
able  to  rely  implicitly  on  being  understood  and  trust- 
ed—  and,  if  need  be,  defended  —  by  the  husband. 
They  should  be  so  identified— or,  to  take  the  small- 
er and  better  word,  so  one  with  each  other — that 
whatever  comes  to  one  comes  to  both  ;  that  neither 
should  add  to  the  affliction  of  the  other  by  putting 
his  or  her  own  weight  on  to  the  load  that  has  to 
be  borne ;  that,  in  short,  they  should  divide  each 
other's  burdens  and  double  each  other's  joys.  The 
confidence  of  each  in  the  other  should  be  so  abso- 
lute and  entire  as  to  give  rest  to  the  heart  of  each, 
whether  in  the  trials  of  business,  or  in  the  "many 
things "  that  are  so  troublous  and  distracting  in 
household  management.  Unless  this  be  the  case  a 
marriage  is  shorn  of  its  highest  glory,  its  greatest 
helpfulness,  and  its  holiest  influence.     And  yet, 

*  Braden.      The  Beautiful  Gleaner,  p.  478. 


76  RUTH   THE    GLEANER. 

alas  !  how  often  it  is  far  below  this  beautiful  ideal ! 
It  is  entered  upon  too  frequently  without  knowl- 
edge of  each  other's  characters,  aptitudes,  and  idio- 
syncrasies, and  from  merely  secular  motives,  be- 
cause of  the  position  which  it  will  command  or 
the  advantages  which  it  will  bring,  and  without 
any  idea  of  mutual  helpfulness.  And  then  after 
a  time  the  illusion  is  dispelled-,  disappointment 
leads  to  alienation,  alienation  to  unhappiness,  un- 
happiness  to  divorce,  and  that,  again,  sometimes — 
so  little  valued  are  the  lessons  of  experience — to  a 
repetition  of  the  same  miserable  circle  with  other 
parties.  I  say  nothing  now  of  the  evil  of  the  short 
and  easy  method  of  obtaining  divorces  which  is  the 
shame  of  our  country,  and  which  is  twin-sister  to 
Mormonism  itself ;  but  I  do  cry  out  with  all  my 
might  against  those  thoughtless  alliances  and  mer- 
cantile marriages  which  end  so  frequently  in  di- 
vorce, and  I  implore  young  people  to  view  this 
matter,  "  not  lightly  or  unadvisedly,  but  reverently, 
discreetly,  soberly,  and  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord."  I 
am  old-fashioned  enough  to  believe  in  love,  and  I 
am  Christian  enough  to  believe  that  no  Christian 
can  be  truly  happy  in  an  alliance  in  which  Christ 
is  not  supreme.  Therefore  I  would  lay  down  two 
principles  :  to  all  alike  I  say,  do  not  marry  one  whom 
you  do  not  love — that  is  the  lav/  of  nature ;  then  to 
the  Christian  I  add  this  other :  do  not  marry  one 
who  has  no  love  to  Christ — that  is  the  law  of  grace. 
Comply  with  these  two  precepts,  and  other  things 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  77 

will  soon  naturally  and  easily  adjust  themselves; 
but  without  these  essentials  nothing  will  go  right 
for  any  length  of  time.  Above  all,  young  v/oman, 
never  marry  an  infidel  to  convert  him,  or  a  drunk- 
ard to  steady  him,  or  a  rake  to  reform  him ;  for  if 
you  do,  you  sacrifice  yourself  for  nothing,  inasmuch 
as  you  will  entail  misery  on  yourself  without  any 
certainty  of  benefiting  him.  Let  the  reformation 
come  first,  and  then  there  will  be  more  assurance 
of  happiness. 

But  now  just  a  word,  in  conclusion,  on  the  value 
of  character.  Boaz  said  to  Ruth,  "All  the  city  of 
my  people  doth  know  that  thou  art  a  worthy  wom- 
an ;"  and  his  conviction  that  she  was  indeed  a  no- 
ble woman  led  to  his  interest  in  her  welfare,  and 
ultimately  to  his  making  her  his  wife.  But  Ruth 
had  not  been  very  long  in  Bethlehem,  and  the  fact 
that  so  soon  she  had  gained  such  a  reputation 
speaks  volumes  for  her  deportment.  Character  can- 
not long  be  hid.  If  it  be  good,  it  will  reveal  itself 
in  worthy  conduct ;  but  if  it  be  bad,  it  will  let  itself 
out,  in  spite  of  any  hypocritical  efforts  to  hide  itself. 
Through  some  little  chink  of  unconscious  and,  there- 
fore, unwatched  evil,  it  will  surely  come  to  light.  The 
daily  life  of  Ruth  in  the  field  was  enough  to  let  all 
know  the  sort  of  woman  that  she  was.  Thus  char- 
acter and  reputation  are  closely  interlinked.  The 
one  is  the  flower,  the  other  is  the  fragrance :  but  to 
have  the  fragrance  rich,  you  must  have  the  flower 
perfect.    So,  to  have  the  reputation  good,  you  must 


78  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

not  look  to  that  first,  but  to  the  character,  and  then 
the  reputation  will  take  care  of  itself — nay,  even  in 
apparently  questionable  circumstances,  as  here  the 
character  will  come  to  the  rescue  of  the  reputation. 
How  important,  then,  it  is  to  have  a  good  character ! 
It  is  not  only  the  highway  to  success  in  life,  it  is  in 
itself  the  highest  success.  Cultivate  good  charac- 
ter, therefore ;  and  that  you  may  do  that  in  the 
right  way,  unite  yourself  to  Jesus  by  living  faith ; 
then  go  on  after  the  plan  of  Peter,  "  add  to  your 
faith  courage,  to  your  courage  knowledge,  to  your 
knowledge  temperance,  to  your  temperance  pa- 
tience, and  to  your  patience  godliness,  to  your 
godliness  brotherly  kindness,  and  to  your  broth- 
erly kindness  love ;"  and  then  you  will  be  living 
epistles  of  Christ,  known  and  read  of  all  men,  car- 
rying in  your  deportment  the  infallible  indorsement 
of  the  genuineness  of  your  piety. 


V. 

THE  LOVING  MARRIAGE. 
Chapter  IV. 

In  Palestine  all  important  cities  were  surround- 
ed by  strong  walls.  This  was  necessary  for  the 
defence  of  the  inhabitants  from  the  assaults  of 
robbers,  and  nightly  everything  of  value  that  could 


RUTH    THE   GLEANER.  79 

be  Stolen  was  brought  in  from  the  outside  for  safe- 
keeping. The  only  entrance  or  egress  was  by  the 
gate,  which  was  open  throughout  the  day  but  closed 
at  nightfall,  and  which,  from  the  continual  going 
out  and  coming  in  of  the  people  by  it,  came  to  be 
a  favorite  place  of  resort  for  the  community.  The 
passage  in  which  it  stood  was  commonly  vaulted, 
having  a  chamber  over  it,  and  so  it  was  shady  and 
cool,  furnishing  an  agreeable  lounging-place  for  all 
who  sought  for  any  reason  to  linger  beneath  its 
shelter.  There  were  also  chambers  or  recesses  at 
the  sides,  and  "a  void  place"  of  some  considerable 
extent,*  where  the  people  could  conveniently  as- 
semble in  considerable  numbers.  Thither  went  the 
curious  to  see  and  to  be  seen,  and  to  hear  all  the 
news  of  the  neighborhood.  Thither  the  friend 
went  to  meet  those  v/hom  he  was  expecting  from 
the  country,  or  to  accompany  those  who  were  set- 
ting out  upon  a  journey.  There  the  markets  were 
held  j  there,  too,  all  legal  business  was  transacted, 
in  a  very  primitive  yet  wholly  satisfactory  manner. 
Many  of  these  old  customs  continue  to  the  pres- 
ent day,  and  the  vivid  description  given  by  Dr.  W. 
M.  Thomson  of  what  he  had  often  seen  in  Jaffa  may 
help  us  to  realize  more  thoroughly  the  nature  of 
the  court  which  Boaz  extemporized  for  the  securing 
of  the  object  which  he  had  so  much  at  heart.  Says 
our  venerable  friend  :  "  In  1834  I  resided  for  sev- 

*  I  Kings,  xxii.,  10. 


8o  RUTH   THE  GLEANER. 

eral  months  in  this  city  (Jaffa),  and,  to  pass  away 
the  time,  frequently  came  out  in  the  afternoon  '  to 
the  gate  through  the  city,  and  prepared  my  seat  in 
the  street.'  There  the  governor,  the  kady,  and  the 
elders  of  the  people  assembled  daily,  'in  a  void 
place,'  and  held  an  extemporaneous  divan,  at  which 
affairs  of  every  kind  were  discussed  and  settled 
with  the  least  possible  ceremony.  But  recently 
from  America,  I  was  greatly  amused  with  this  nov- 
el open-air  court,  conducted  amid  the  din,  confu- 
sion, and  uproar  of  a  thronged  gate -way  —  men, 
women,  and  children  jostling  each  other,  horses 
prancing,  camels  growling,  donkeys  braying,  as 
they  passed  in  and  out  of  the  gate ;  but  nothing 
could  interrupt  the  proceedings  or  disturb  the  ju- 
dicial gravity  of  the  court.  The  whole  scene,  with 
all  its  surroundings,  was  wholly  Oriental,  and  with- 
al had  about  it  an  air  of  remote  antiquity  which 
rendered  it  doubly  interesting."* 

To  the  gate  of  Bethlehem,  then,  Boaz  went 
straight  up  from  his  threshing-floor.  Naomi  had 
not  misjudged  when  she  averred  that  he  would  not 
rest  until  he  had  brought  matters  to  a  head.  It 
was  the  first  business  that  he  set  about  that  day; 
and  when  he  reached  the  gate,  he  sat  down  on  one 
of  the  seats  in  its  vicinity  with  the  air  of  one  who 
had  an  important  duty  to  discharge.  By-and-by  he 
observed  the  Goel  of  Naomi  coming  near,  on  his 

*  Southern  Pakstiuc  and  Jerusalem,  pp.  29,  30. 


RUTH   THE    GLEANER,  8l 

way  out  into  the  field,  and  called  to  him,  "Ho, 
such  a  one  !  turn  aside,  sit  down  here."  The  orig- 
inal words,  translated  "  such  a  one,"  are  very  pecul- 
iar, and  some  have  supposed  that  they  were  an  or- 
dinary legal  formula,  like  the  John  Doe  or  Richard 
Roe  of  old  English  documents ;  while  others  have 
preferred  to  take  them  as  we  take  indefinite  initials, 
like  A.  B.  C.  or  M.  N.,  and  the  like.  They  are  in 
Hebrew  "  P'loni  almoni,"  the  former  derived  from  a 
word  meaning  to  mark  out  or  distinguish,  and  the 
latter  from  a  term  which  signifies  to  hide ;  so  that 
both  together  seem  to  give  the  notion  of  one  who 
is  indicated,  though  in  a  certain  sense  concealed ; 
and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  he  v/ho,  as  we 
shall  presently  see,  would  not  marry  Ruth  lest  he 
should  mar  his  own  inheritance  while  perpetu- 
ating the  name  of  Mahlon,  is  not  even  named 
in  this  narrative,  and  has  passed  into  utter  ob- 
livion. 

Thus  accosted  by  Boaz,  this  anonymous  Goel  sat 
down  to  await  developments,  wondering,  perhaps, 
what  was  coming  next,  and  only  whetted  to  a  more 
eager  curiosity  as  he  saw  Boaz  pick  out  ten  men  of 
the  elders  of  the  city,  and  place  them  in  formal  or- 
der, that  they  might  be  both  witnesses  and  judges. 
Every  city  was  governed  by  elders,  and  perhaps  ten 
were  needed  to  make  what  we  should  call  a  quorum, 
even  as  among  modern  Jews  it  is  said  that  ten  are 
required  to  constitute  a  synagogue.  In  any  case, 
we  may  be  sure  that  Boaz  knew  what  he  was  about, 

4* 


82  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

and  proceeded  in  everything  according  to  consuetu- 
dinary law. 

The  court  having  been  thus  constituted,  Boaz  be- 
gan the  business  by  addressing  the  unnamed  kins- 
man thus :  "The  parcel  of  land  which  was  our  broth- 
er Elimelech's,  Naomi,  that  is  come  again  out  of 
the  country  of  Moab,  has  determined  to  sell,  and  I 
have  said,  I  will  uncover  thine  ear  to  say  '  Buy  it, 
before  the  inhabitants  and  before  the  elders  of  my 
people.  If  thou  wilt  redeem  it,  redeem  it ;  but  if 
thou  wilt  not  redeem  it,  then  tell  me,  that  I  may 
know :  for  there  is  none  to  redeem  it  beside  thee ; 
and  I  am  after  thee.  And  he  said,  I  will  redeem  it. 
Then  said  Boaz,  What  day  thou  buyest  the  field  of 
the  hand  of  Naomi,  thou  must  buy  it  also,' "  or  as 
some  read,  "  thou  must  buy  also  Ruth  the  Moab- 
itess,  the  wife  of  the  dead  to  raise  up  the  name  of 
the  dead  upon  his  inheritance.  And  the  kinsman 
said,  I  cannot  redeem  it  for  myself,  lest  I  mar  mine 
own  inheritance  :  redeem  thou  my  right  to  thyself ;" 
or  rather,  perhaps,  "  redeem  thou  instead  of  me." 

Now,  to  understand  all  this,  it  is  necessary  to  re- 
capitulate some  things  which  we  have  already  ad- 
vanced concerning  the  duties  of  the  Goel.  The 
Jewish  nation  was  a  theocracy,  that  is  to  say,  Jeho- 
vah was  the  King,  and  the  land  belonged  to  Him. 
Under  His  sanction  it  had  been  originally  appropri- 
ated to  the  people,  according  to  their  tribes  and  fam- 
ilies by  lot.  But  they  could  not  do  with  it  as  they 
chose,  and  it  never  could  be  alienated  from  the  fam- 


RUTH    THE   GLEANER.  83 

ily  to  whom  it  fell  at  first.  If  the  possessor  for  the 
time  became  poor  he  might  sell  it,  but  never  out 
and  out,  for  it  was  always  to  revert  to  himself  or  his 
heirs  at  the  year  of  jubilee ;  nay,  if  he  were  able  to 
redeem  it  before  that  time  he  might  do  so,  or  if  be- 
ing himself  unable,  his  next  of  kin  had  the  means  of 
buying  it  back,  he  had  the  privilege  of  redeeming  it. 
Again,  when  the  proprietor  offered  his  land  for  sale 
it  was  the  privilege  of  the  next  of  kin  to  become  the 
purchaser,  and  no  other  kinsman  could  buy  it  until 
he  had  formally  given  up  that  which  was  by  law  his 
privilege.  This  was  the  law  of  property,  but  side 
by  side  with  it,  and,  as  it  would  seem,  intimately  con- 
nected with  it,  there  was  also  that  of  the  Levirate 
marriage,  to  the  effect  that  if  an  Israelite  marTled 
and  died  without  children,  his  brother  should  mar- 
ry his  widow,  and  if  a  son  should  be  born  of  that 
marriage  that  son  was  to  take  the  name  of  the 
deceased  man  and  inherit  his  estate,  so  that  the 
property  should  not  be  alienated.  Now,  when  the 
nearest  of  kin  to  such  a  widow  was  also  her  broth- 
er-in-law, the  widow  and  the  land,  through  the  oper- 
ation of  the  two  laws,  would  go  together ;  but  when 
there  was  no  brother-in-law,  and  yet  a  childless 
widow,  the  Goel  who  redeemed  the  land  was  also 
expected  by  custom  to  marry  the  widow.  This  was 
not  laid  down  by  the  letter  of  the  statute,  but  it 
seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  implied  in  the  spirit 
of  it,  and  so  it  became  the  custom,  or  what  the 
Scottish  people  would  call  "  the  use  and  wont." 


84  RUTH    THE   GLEANER. 

Now  this  last  was  the  case  of  Naomi.  In  her 
poverty  she  wanted  to  sell  for  the  interval  between 
that  date  and  the  year  of  jubilee  the  land  that  had 
belonged  to  Elimelech,  and  this  had  become  known 
to  Boaz.  We  may  suppose,  in  fact,  that  Naomi  had 
taken  Ruth  into  her  confidence,  and  that  Boaz,  hav- 
ing learned  from  her  what  her  mother-in-law  pro- 
posed, had  seen  in  that  a  way  to  the  immediate  set- 
tlement of  the  business ,  for  Ruth  was  as  much  con- 
cerned as  Naomi,  because,  if  a  kinsman  purchased 
the  land,  he  came  also  under  obligation  thereby  to 
make  Ruth  his  wife.  Now,  so  long  as  this  anony- 
mous Goel  knew  nothing  more  than  that  Naomi 
wanted  to  sell  the  land,  he  expressed  his  willingness 
to  become  the  redeemer  of  it ,  but  the  moment  he 
heard  that  the  purchase  involved  also  the  obliga- 
tion to  marry  Ruth,  he  renounced  his  privilege  in 
favor  of  Boaz,  who  was  the  kinsman  next  after  him. 
The  reason  which  he  gave  for  doing  this  is  expressed 
in  these  words,  "  lest  I  mar  mine  own  inheritance ;" 
and  it  has  been  explained  in  two  or  three  different 
ways.  Some  have  supposed  that  he  had  a  wife  and 
children  already ;  others,  that  he  feared  the  risk  of 
losing  the  perpetuation  of  his  own  name  in  secur- 
ing that  of  Elimelech;  and  others  still  that  his 
means  could  not  stand  the  drain  upon  them  that 
would  be  made  by  the  support  of  Naomi  and  Ruth, 
in  addition  to  the  finding  of  the  purchase-money. 
Dr.  Cassell  suggests  that  he  was  moved  simply  by 
superstition,  and  feared  that  as  Mahlon  and  Chi- 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER.  85 

lion  had  died  so  soon  after  their  marriage  with  two 
daughters  of  Moab,  a  similar  fate  might  befall  him 
if  he  married  Ruth.  It  is,  perhaps,  impossible  now 
to  say  definitely  what  he  referred  to.  One  thing, 
however,  is  very  clear,  namely,  that  his  whole  thought 
was  about  his  own  inheritance,  and  thus  selfishness 
was  at  the  root  of  his  decision.  But,  in  any  case,  his 
determination  must  have  been  an  immense  relief  to 
Boaz,  who,  despite  the  cool,  matter-of-fact  way  in 
which  he  appeared  to  conduct  himself  throughout, 
was  far  from  being  indifferent  to  tl-te-  issue.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  he  had  a  few  uncomfortable  moments 
after  he  heard  the  Goel  say,  in  regard  to  the  land, 
"  I  will  redeem  it,"  but  when,  after  he  had  put  the 
full  case  before  his  rival  the  irrevocable  words  were 
spoken,  "  Redeem  thou  instead  of  me,'"  then  would 
come  a  great  gladness  into  his  heart.  Still  he  did 
not  show  his  feelings  before  the  time,  and  for  the 
formal  completion  of  the  transaction  there  was  yet 
to  be  gone  through  an  interesting  ceremony,  which 
had  fallen  into  abeyance  before  this  book  was  writ- 
ten, but  which  helps  to  prove  that  there  was  an  in- 
timate connection  between  the  law  of  the  Goel  and 
that  of  the  brother-in-law.  The  brother-in-law  might, 
if  he  so  chose,  refuse  to  marry  the  widow  of  his 
brother,  but  if  he  did  so,  here  is  the  statute :  "  If  the 
man  like  not  to  take  his  brother's  wife,  then  let  his 
brother's  wife  go  up  to  the  gate  unto  the  elders,  and 
say,  My  husband's  brother  refuseth  to  raise  up 
unto  his  brother  a  name  in  Israel,  he  will  not  per- 


86  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

form  the  duty  of  my  husband's  brother.  Then  the 
elders  of  his  city  shall  call  him,  and  speak  unto 
him ;  and  if  he  stand  to  it,  and  say,  I  like  not  to 
take  her;  then  shall  his  brother's  wife  come  unto 
him  in  the  presence  of  the  elders,  and  loose  his  shoe 
from  off  his  foot  and  spit  in  his  face,  and  shall  an- 
swer and  say,  So  shall  it  be  done  unto  that  man  that 
will  not  build  up  his  brother's  house,  and  his  name 
shall  be  called  in  Israel,  The  house  of  him  that  hath 
his  shoe  loosed. ''*  Now,  in  connection  with  that 
quotation  from  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  let  us 
read  what  is  said  here  in  the  Book  of  Ruth :  "  Now 
this  was  the  manner  in  former  time  in  Israel  con- 
cerning redeeming  and  concerning  changing,  for  to 
confirm  all  things ;  a  man  plucked  off  his  shoe  and 
gave  it  to  his  neighbor :  and  this  was  a  testimony 
in  Israel."  This  old  custom  originated  in  the  fact 
that  when  a  man  took  possession  of  land  he  planted 
his  foot — of  course  with  the  shoe  on  it— on  the  soil. 
Thus  the  shoe  became  the  symbol  of  ownership, 
and  by  handing  that  to  another,  a  man  renounced 
his  own  title  to  the  land  which  he  was  selling,  and 
transferred  it  to  the  person  who  received  the  shoe. 
But  there  was  a  wide  difference  between  a  man's 
taking  off  his  shoe  of  his  own  accord,  and  having 
it  plucked  off  by  another.  I  may  remove  my  hat 
to  salute  another  without  any  disgrace ;  but  he  who 
knocks  my  hat  from  my  head  insults  me.     So  the 

*  Deut.  XXV.,  7-10. 


RUTH   THE   GLEANER,  87 

plucking  off  of  the  shoe  by  another  was  an  igno- 
minious thing;  and  thus  the  Goel  who  refused  to 
marry  his  brother's  widow  was  publicly  disgraced; 
and  the  indignity  was  further  intensified  by  his  be- 
ing spit  upon  by  his  sister-in-law,  and  by  his  entail- 
ing on  himself  and  his  children  the  opprobrious 
nickname  of  "  Barefoot,"  or  "Baresole,"  in  all  com- 
ing time.  Now,  in  the  case  before  us,  Boaz  did  not 
proceed  to  such  extremities.  So  far  as  appears, 
neither  Ruth  nor  Naomi  was  present  during  the 
proceedings  at  the  gate,  and  the  Goel  was  permitted 
to  take  off  his  own  shoe,  while  the  rest  of  the  pen- 
alty was  dispensed  with.  Boaz  did  not  wish  to  pro- 
voke antagonism  by  proceeding  to  extremities,  or  it 
may  be  that  it  was  only  in  the  case  of  the  brother- 
in-law  refusing  "  to  raise  up  the  name  of  the  dead 
upon  his  inheritance  "  that  the  law  was  carried  out 
to  the  letter.  Or  perhaps  Cox  is  right  when  he  says : 
"His  motive  in  thus  sparing  his  kinsman  is  not  sim- 
ply, I  suppose,  either  a  kindly  consideration  for  a 
man  closely  related  to  himself,  or  his  love  for  Ruth, 
but  also  the  conviction  that  an  Israelite,  caring  only 
for  the  letter  of  the  law  and  not  for  its  spirit,  might 
honestly  doubt  whether  he  were  bound  to  marry  his 
'  brother's '  widow,  when  that  widow  was  a  daughter 
of  Moab.  True,  Ruth  had  come  to  put  her  trust 
under  the  shadow  of  Jehovah's  wings.  True,  she 
was  known  as  a  good  and  brave  woman  in  all  the 
city  of  Bethlehem.  But  none  the  less  she  was  by 
birth  an  alien,  one  of  the  heathen  women  with  whom 


88  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

the  sons  of  Israel  were  forbidden  to  intermarry. 
The  law  was  doubtful :  if  the  appeal  to  it  were 
pushed  too  far  he  might  defeat  his  own  end."*  So 
he  let  the  Goel  pull  off  his  own  shoe,  and  when  he 
had  received  it  he  said  "to  the  elders,  and  to  the 
crowd  of  people  who  had  by  this  time  assembled 
round  them  at  the  gate  :  "  Ye  are  witnesses  this  day, 
that  I  have  bought  all  that  was  Elimelech's,  and  all 
that  was  Chilion's  and  Mahlon's,  of  the  hand  of 
Naomi.  Moreover,  Ruth  the  Moabitess  have  I  pur- 
chased to  be  my  wife,  to  raise  up  the  name  of  the 
dead  upon  his  inheritance,  that  the  name  of*  the 
dead  be  not  cut  off  from  among  his  brethren  and 
from  the  gate  of  his  place :  ye  are  witnesses  this 
day."  To  this  the  elders  gave  formal  response, 
"We  are  witnesses,"  and  they  and  the  people  vied 
with  each  other  in  their  benediction  of  the  man  who 
had  thus  nobly  performed  the  kinsman's  part.  They 
use,  indeed,  the  words  which  have  become  the  rec- 
ognized formula  of  benediction  in  a  Jewish  mar- 
riage ;  and  which,  though  here,  perhaps,  employed 
for  the  first  time,  are  for  that  very  reason  the  more 
significant,  inasmuch  as  they  put  Ruth  the  Moab- 
itess side  by  side  with  Rachel  and  Leah,  and  so  in- 
dicate that  the  people  of  Bethlehem  were  prepared 
to  receive  her  into  the  covenant  of  promise  and  the 
commonwealth  of  Israel,  as  no  longer  a  stranger 
and  foreigner,  but  as  a  daughter  in  the  household 
of  faith. 

*  Expositor,  vol.  ii.,  p.  i6g. 


RUTH    THE   GLEANER.  89 

So  Boaz  openly  and  legally  made  Ruth  his  wife, 
and  the  fruit  of  the  marriage  was  a  son,  who  is 
called  the  Goel  or  redeemer  of  Naomi  (chap,  iv., 
14),  because  he  was  accounted  her  grandson,  as 
standing  to  her  in  the  place  of  the  son  of  Mahlon. 
That  this  was  the  light  in  which  he  was  regarded 
by  all  the  people  is  clearly  revealed,  not  only  by 
the  tenderness  with  which  Naomi  treated  him,  but 
also  by  the  fact  that  it  is  to  her  rather  than  to  Ruth 
that  the  congratulations  of  the  women  of  Bethle- 
hem are  especially  addressed ;  and  by  their  giving 
him  the  name  Obed,  a  servant,  indicating  that  in 
their  view  he  would  be  a  constant  minister  to  the 
comfort  of  Naomi  in  the  time  of  her  old  age.  In- 
deed, as  Cox,  borrowing  and  condensing  the  com- 
ment of  Cassell  on  this  part  of  the  chapter,  has 
said,  "  It  is  one  of  the  many  fine  points  of  the  story 
that  its  concluding  sentences  are  almost  wholly  de- 
voted, not  to  the  young  and  happy  wife  and  mother, 
but  to  Naomi,  who  had  suffered  so  many  calamities, 
and  who,  by  the  piety  and  resignation  with  which 
she  bore  them,  had  drawn  Ruth  from  the  idolatries 
of  Moab.  It  is  Naomi,  not  Ruth,  whom  '  the  women 
her  neighbors '  congratulate  on  the  birth  of  Ruth's 
son.  In  him  they  see  Naomi's  Goel — Ruth  had  al- 
ready hers  in  Boaz — and  they  pray  that  as  he  grows 
up  he  may  restore  her  to  her  former  happiness,  and 
be  the  stay  and  gladness  of  her  old  age."*     Yet 

*  Expositor,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  372,  373. 


90  RUTH   THE   GLEANER. 

Ruth  is  not  forgotten,  for  she  is  spoken  of  as  Nao- 
mi's "  daughter-in-law,  which  loveth  thee,  which  is 
better  to  thee  than  seven  sons."  We  are  permitted 
to  see,  also,  ere  the  book  closes,  that  in  the  course 
of  time  the  little  boy  "whom  Naomi  laid  in  her 
bosom  "  became  the  progenitor  of  David  the  dar- 
ling of  Israel,  and  through  him  of  Jesus  the  Sav- 
iour of  the  world.  Truly,  on  that  wedding-day,  as 
Boaz  led  home  his  bride  amid  the  benedictions  of 
his  friends  and  neighbors,  some  prophetic  seer 
might  have  addressed  her  thus  : 

"Thou  knowest  not  the  glorious  race, 

Sweet  Ruth !  that  shall  be  thine  ; 
Plow  many  kings  thou  shalt  embrace 

In  thy  illustrious  line. 
The  fountains  of  Hebraic  song 

Are  in  thy  heart,  fair  Ruth ! 
Fountains  whose  tides  are  deep  and  strong 

In  deathless  love  and  truth. 


The  great  in  wisdom  and  in  song, 

The  bard  of  deathless  fame, 
A  mighty  and  a  warlike  throng 

Shall  rise  to  bless  thy  name. 
And  One,  at  last,  of  lowly  birth, 

Shall  crown  thy  long  increase. 
Of  lowly  birth,  yet  not  of  earth — 

The  glorious  Prince  of  Peace." 

Yes,  thou  beautiful  gleaner  !  lovely  and  beloved, 
we  greet  thee,  too,  as  a  mother  of  our  Lord  !  The 
ideal  woman  of  the  Old  Testament,  we  place  thee 


RUTH    THE   GLEANER.  9 1 

side  by  side  with  the  Mary  of  the  New,  while  we 
bow  in  lowly  reverence  before  Him  who  is  the  Son 
and  yet  the  Lord  of  both. 

Not  every  story  that  begins  so  sadly  as  this  did 
has  so  sweet  and  pleasant  an  ending.  Not  always 
are  virtue,  piety,  constancy,  and  self-sacrifice  so  vis- 
ibly rewarded  upon  the  earth.  But  we  are  not  on 
that  account  to  think  the  less  of  the  providence  of 
God ;  for  virtue  is  not  to  be  pursued  because  of  its 
reward,  and  right  is  to  be  done  for  its  own  sake — 
nay,  rather,  for  the  sake  of  God.  Then,  when  the 
end  shall  come — not  here,  but  hereafter — we  shall 
see  the  vindication  of  Jehovah,  and  forget  all  else 
in  the  "  Well  done  "  of  an  approving  Judge. 

I  linger  only  to  give  point  to  two  lessons  which 
lie  on  the  surface  of  this  narrative. 

The  first  is,  that  in  the  matter  of  marriage,  every- 
thing ought  to  be  public,  open  and  above-board. 
How  nobly  does  Boaz  appear  all  through  these 
transactions !  He  is  careful  not  ta  infringe  upon 
the  right  of  another,  and  he  contracts  for  marriage 
openly  before  the  elders  of  the  people.  There  was 
nothing  clandestine  about  his  procedure.  This 
was  no  runaway  match,  to  be  formally  made  in  se- 
cret haste  and  bitterly  lamented  in  lifelong  leisure. 
He  did  not  go  away  from  Bethlehem  to  have  it  cel- 
ebrated, without  the  knowledge  of  friends  and  neigh- 
bors, but  he  went  about  it  in  the  statutory  way,  and 
did  all  things  decently  and  in  order.  Now,  here  is 
an  example  for  young  people  in  similar  circum- 


92  RUTH    THE   GLEANER. 

Stances.  There  may  be  exceptional  cases,  but,  as  a 
rule,  clandestine  marriages  are  to  be  condemned ; 
and  if  they  turn  out  well,  those  who  have  contract- 
ed them  should  thank  a  gracious  Providence  rather 
than  congratulate  themselves  on  their  own  wisdom. 
There  is  generally  something  wrong  when  either  the 
one  party  or  the  other  wishes  the  relationship  to  be 
kept  a  secret;  and  the  very  proposal  to  do  that 
should  be  itself  a  danger-signal  that  ought  at  once 
to  bring  things  to  a  halt ;  for,  as  one  has  well  said, 
"  Whenever  there  is  anything  in  marriage  or  in  its 
preliminaries  that  needs  smothering  up,  the  wind  is 
sown,  and  the  whirlwind  will  need  to  be  reaped." 
Nor  can  I  withhold  here  the  expression  of  my 
opinion  that  the  facilities  given  by  the  marriage 
laws,  in  this  State,  at  least,  for  the  contracting  of 
such  clandestine  marriages,  have  much  to  do  with 
the  increase  of  divorces  among  us ;  and  I  long  to 
see  one  general  marriage  law  for  the  whole  nation, 
which,  by  requiring  public  notice  to  be  given  be- 
forehand in  the  place  where  the  parties  are  known, 
and  by  insisting  on  the  production  before  the  cler- 
gyman of  a  certificate  that  such  notice  has  been 
given,  shall  relieve  the  ministers  of  the  gospel  from 
the  applications  so  constantly  made  to  them  to  unite 
in  matrimony  those  who  are  utter  strangers  both  to 
them  and  to  the  city  in  which  they  dwell.  Such  a 
marriage  law — the  same  for  all  the  States  of  the 
Union,  and  enacted  by  the  Houses  of  Congress — 
would,  in  my  judgment,  be  one  very  effectual  meth- 


RUTH    THE   CLEANER.  93 

od  of  dealing  with  the  marriage  problem ;  but  so 
long  as  magistrates  among  us,  without  any  public 
notice  or  investigation,  can  marry  all  and  sundry 
that  come  to  them,  and  so  long  as  even  ministers 
of  the  gospel  are  sometimes  over-persuaded  to  do 
what  their  better  judgment  disapproves,  lest,  per- 
haps, worse  consequences  should  follow,  so  long 
we  must  expect  that  the  institution  of  the  family 
shall  be  degraded  among  us ;  and  that  means,  ul- 
timately, the  degradation  of  all  that  is  wholesome 
and  conservative  in  the  state. 

Finally,  we  may  learn  from  all  this  that  self-sac- 
rifice is  self- saving,  and  that  self-seeking  is  self- 
loving.  Orpah  went  back  to  Moab,  and  she  is  heard 
of  no  more.  Ruth  clave  to  Naomi,  and  she  is  can- 
onized among  the  Old  Testament  saints,  and  has  a 
place  among  the  ancestors  of  our  Lord.  This  name- 
less Goel  was  afraid  lest  his  name  should  perish  while 
he  was  seeking  to  perpetuate  Mahlon's,  and  it  has 
perished  in  spite  of  his  refusal  to  be  the-Xjoel^  of 
Naomi.  Boaz  did  what  he  declined,  and  loTliis 
name  stands  in  everlasting  honor,  on  the  first  page 
of  the  New  Testament.  "  He  that  loveth  his  life 
will  lose  it,  and  he  that  will  lose  his  life  for  my 
sake,  will  keep  it  unto  life  eternal."  Selfishness 
outwits  itself,  but  self-sacrifice  for  Christ's  sake 
issues  in  the  highest  gain.  Yet  if  we  make  the  sac- 
rifice for  the  sake  of  the  gain,  it  is  not  self-sacrifice 
but  selfishness.  It  must  be  made  for  Christ's  sake, 
and  then  Christ  himself  will  be  our  reward. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

The  Book  of  Esther  is  one  of  five  Old  Testament 
books  which  were  called  by  the  later  Jews  "  Megil- 
loth,"  the  other  four  being  the  Song  of  Solomon, 
Ruth,  Lamentations,  and  Ecclesiastes.  The  name 
"  Megiiloth "  signifies  rolls,  or  volumes,  and  was 
probably  given  to  these  books  because  each  was 
i-ead  in  the  synagogue  on  a  special  festival  day,  and 
was  for  convenience  on  such  occasions  written  on  a 
separate  roll.  Of  the  five,  that  of  Esther  was  the 
most  highly  esteemed,  being  sometimes  styled  sim- 
ply "  Megillah,"  or  the  volume.  It  was  read  on  the 
day  of  the  feast  of  Purim,  and  was  elevated  to  a 
place  above  the  other  sacred  books,  except  those  of 
the  Pentateuch.  It  has  always  been  reckoned  in 
the  Old  Testament  canon,  and  is  "named  or  im- 
plied in  almost  every  enumeration  of  the  books 
composing  it,  from  Josephus  downward."  *  More- 
over, the  fact  that  seven  other  chapters,  additional 
to  those  in  the  Hebrew  canon,  have  been  relegated 
to  the  Apocrypha,  as  unworthy  of  a  place  in  Holy 

*  SmitJis  Bible  Dictionary,  Esther,  Book  of. 

5 


98  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

Scripture,  gives  all  the  greater  weight  to  those 
which  are  retained,  and  is  an  evidence  that  some 
discrimination  was  exercised  by  those  on  whom  the 
decision  of  such  a  matter  devolved. 

In  modern  times  objections  have  been  raised 
against  its  canonicity,  especially  on  two  grounds : 
First,  because  it  makes  no  mention  of  God ;  and, 
second,  because  it  breathes  a  spirit  of  narrowness 
and  vindictiveness.  Now,  as  regards  the  first  of 
these,  though  we  admit  that  it  states  a  fact,  we  yet 
fail  to  see  that  it  has  any  force  in  this  connection. 
For  in  the  book  there  is  no  indication  of  any  such 
animus  towards  God,  as  would  make  the  omission 
of  His  name  significant  either  of  antagonism  or  of 
contempt.  It  is  quite  possible  that  there  might  be 
in  a  work  that  had  no  mention  of  God's  name,  such 
a  spirit  of  irreverence  and  unbelief  as  to  show  that 
the  absence  of  the  divine  name  was  meant  to  be  a 
slight.  But  there  is  nothing  of  that  in  the  Book  of 
Esther ;  for  though  the  name  of  God  is  not  in  it,  His 
hand  is  very  manifest  all  through  it,  and  the  sense  of 
His  presence  is  made  all  the  more  vivid  to  the  reader 
by  the  very  silence  of  the  writer.  When  Jesus,  after 
His  resurrection,  met  His  followers  at  the  Lake  of 
Galilee,  they  were  all  sure  that  it  was  He ;  but  "none 
of  them  durst  ask  him.  Who  art  thou  ?  knowing  that 
it  was  the  Lord."  *  Their  very  certainty  that  it  was 
He  kept  them   silent.     Similarly,  this  writer,  who- 

*  John  xxi.,  12. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  99 

ever  he  was,  takes  it  so  thoroughly  for  granted  that 
God's  providence  ordered  the  things  that  he  re- 
cords, that  he  does  not  think  it  needful  to  refer  to 
it;  and  his  silence  is  not  that  of  unbelief,  but  of 
faith.  Nay,  more,  I  am  not  sure  but  that  he  pro- 
duces a  deeper  impression  of  God's  minute  over- 
ruling care  over  His  people  by  his  silence  than  he 
would  have  done  by  any  words.  An  orator  may 
gain  his  end  in  the  hearts  of  his  hearers  in  one  or 
other  of  two  ways :  either  by  going  before  them  with 
an  enthusiasm  whose  infection  they  are  sure  to 
catch,  or  by,  as  it  were,  keeping  behind  them  and 
studiously  holding  himself  from  saying  what  they  all 
feel  that  he  ought,  in  consistency  with  his  argument 
and  principles,  to  say.  In  the  latter  case,  when  he 
ceases  his  hearers  go  away  exclaiming,  "  Why  did  he 
not  go  further,  and  declare  that  this  or  that  should 
be  done  at  once  V  But,  as  they  thus  speak,  they  are 
all  unconsciously  m.anifesting  the  very  spirit  which 
he  designed  to  evoke  in  them.  Now  it  is  on  the 
latter  principle  that  the  Book  of  Esther  is  con- 
structed, and  its  very,  silence  concerning  God  pro- 
vokes the  reader  to  speak  the  more  emphatically  of 
the  fact  that  His  providence  is  so  conspicuous  in 
the  history  which  it  recounts.  If  that  had  been 
only  once  referred  to  by  the  writer,  it  would  not 
have  been  nearly  so  frequently  remarked  on  by  the 
readers,  and  so  a  good  object  has  been  gained  by 
the  course  which  he  has  chosen.  And,  in  any  case, 
one  who  desired  to  palm  off  a  production  of  his 


IpO  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN, 

own  for  an  inspired  book,  would  never  have  thought 
of  keeping  God's  name  out  of  his  forgery.  In- 
deed, as  if  to  give  point  to  this  argument,  the  very 
first  verse  of  the  Apocryphal  additions  to  the  book 
which  have  been  rejected  as  uncanonical,  has  this 
expression  :  "  Then  Mordecai  said,  God  hath  done 
these  things."  There  is  often  a  use  of  God's  name 
when  there  is  little  regard  for  God  himself,  and 
sometimes  they  who  know  and  love  Him  best  are 
most  chary  in  the  utterance  of  His  name.  The 
Scottish  shepherd  of  the  olden  time  always  said, 
when  referring  to  the  will  of  the  Supreme,  "It's 
His  will."  And  the  Waldensian  traveller  asked  to 
be  received  simply  "  In  His  name."  I  do  not 
know  whether  that  was  a  more  genuine  piety,  but 
I  am  sure  that  it  was  deeper  than  the  modern  va- 
riety, which  has  the  most  sacred  appellations  of  the 
Eternal  Father  so  frequently — I  had  almost  said 
So  flippantly— upon  its  tongue,  and  I  cannot  see, 
therefore,  that  the  absence  of  God's  name  from  such 
a  book  as  we  shall  find  this  to  be  is  any  valid  argu- 
ment against  its  canonicity. 

As  regards  the  second  objection,  namely,  that 
it  contains  the  record  of  the  manifestation  of  a  nar- 
row and  vindictive  spirit,  we  may  answer  that  the 
first  indispensable  quality  of  a  history  is  that  it  be 
true,  and,  therefore,  if  that  narrowness  of  spirit 
■  were  really  there,  it  would  have  been  false  to  con- 
vey the  impression  that  it  was  not.  Besides,  the 
writer  does  not  necessarily  approve  of  that  which 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  lOI 

he  records;  and  we  must  not  run  away  with  the 
utterly  absurd  idea  that  the  God  of  the  Bible  in- 
dorses everything  which  is  narrated  in  the  Bible. 
If  we  are  to  throw  out  of  the  Scriptures  as  unca- 
nonical  every  account  of  such  human  doings  as  God 
must  disapprove  of,  we  shall  make  it  a  very  fragment- 
ary thing,  and  deprive  it  of  much  of  its  usefulness 
among  men — for,  before  we  get  through  with  the  ex- 
position of  this  book,  we  may  find  that  those  very 
chapters  in  it  to  which  more  especially  this  objec- 
tion is  made  are  fraught  with  lessons  of  warning 
and  reproof,  which  we  might  not  have  received,  so 
forcibly  at  least,  if  these  things  had  been  omitted. 
We  take  the  Book  of  Esther,  thefefore,  as  canoni- 
cal. We  accept  it  as  an  integral  part  of  those 
Scriptures  which  Jesus  has  commanded  us  to 
search,  and  to  which  He  gave  His  imprimatur 
when  He  said,  "The  Scriptures  cannot  be  broken." 
But  now  the  question  arises,  To  what  precise 
section  of  the  history  of  the  Jews  in  the  time  of 
the  Captivity  or  Dispersion,  does  this  episode  of 
Esther  belong  ?  And  the  answer  to  that  depends 
on  the  settlement  of  this  other,  namely.  Who  was 
the  Ahasuerus — or,  giving  the  name  the  form  which 
it  has  in  the  original,  the  Achashverosh — of  this 
book  ?  In  the  first  verse  of  the  first  chapter  it  is 
said,  "  This  is  Ahasuerus  which  reigned  from  India 
even  unto  Ethiopia,  over  a  hundred  and  seven-and- 
twenty  provinces."  He  was,  therefore.  Emperor  of 
Persia  at  the  time  of  the  widest  extent  of  that  im- 


I02  ESTHER    THE    QUEEN. 

perial  dominion.  This  at  once  determines  that  he 
could  not  be  before  Darius  Hystaspis,  by  whom 
a  portion  of  India  was  first  annexed  to  the  Persian 
Empire.  The  same  thing  is  established  by  the  fact 
that  the  royal  residence  is  throughout  this  book  at 
Susa,  and  it  is  well  known  that  the  palace  there 
was  first  built  by  Darius.  Therefore,  no  ruler  prior 
to  him  will  satisfy  the  conditions  of  the  history. 
But  neither  can  we  identify  Ahasuerus  with  Darius 
himself,  for  not  to  say  that  the  character  of  Ahasu- 
erus, as  here  depicted,  is  altogether  inconsistent 
with  what  we  know  elsewhere  of  Darius,  we  find 
from  other  sources  that  in  the  third  year  of  his 
reign  Darius  was  still  struggling  to  maintain  his 
claim  to  the  crown ;  Media  was  in  revolt,  and  he 
himself  was  at  Babylon,  so  that  it  would  have  been 
impossible  for  him,  at  that  date,  to  hold  a  feast  so 
extended  and  prolonged  as  that  with  the  descrip- 
tion of  which  the  Book  of  Esther  begins.  Again, 
this  Ahasuerus  cannot  be  Artaxerxes  Longimanus, 
for  it  was  in  the  seventh  year  of  that  monarch's 
reign  that  he  issued  the  letter  which  Ezra  carried 
with  hitn  to  Jerusalem,*  and  which  indicates  that 
he  was  well  acquainted  with  the  Jews  and  their 
peculiar  laws  ;  so  that  he  cannot  be  the  man  to 
whom,  in  the  twelfth  year  of  his  reign,  Haman  is 
represented  in  this  bookf  as  speaking  of  the  Jews 
as  if  then  for  the  first  time  they  had  been  brought 

*  Ezra  vii.,  9,  11-28.  f  Esther  iii.,  8. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  IO3 

before  his  attention.  Besides,  the  mild  and  humane 
qualities  which  come  out  in  the  patron  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah  are  as  far  as  possible  from  harmonizing 
with  the  characteristics  of  this  Ahasuerus. 

But  a  later  monarch  than  Artaxerxes  Longimanus 
would  be  inconsistent  with  the  genealogy  of  Mor- 
decai,  as  given  in  Esther  ii.,  5,  6;  so  that  we  are 
reduced  to  the  conclusion  that  the  history  belongs 
to  the  life  of  a  Persian  monarch  between  the  reigns 
of  Darius  on  the  one  hand  and  Artaxerxes  Longi- 
manus on  the  other,  and  that  must  be  Xerxes,  the 
son  of  Darius  and  the  father  of  Longimanus,  known 
in  history  as  the  unsuccessful  invader  of  Greece. 
And  he  satisfies  all  the  conditions  of  the  case.  For, 
first  of  all,  the  name  Achashverosh  is  the  exact 
transliteration  into  Hebrew,  consonant  for  conson- 
ant, of  the  Persian  word  Khshayarsha,  which  is 
found  in  some  cuneiform  inscriptions  that  have  been 
taken  from  Persepolis,  and  which  the  Greeks  and 
Romans  abbreviated  into  Xerxes.* 

Again,  in  the  third  year  of  his  reign,  Xerxes  as- 
sembled at  Susa  a  great  divan,  preparatory  to  his 
invasion  of  Greece,  corresponding  to  the  feast  here 
described  ;  and  in  the  seventh  year  of  his  reign  he 
returned  to  the  same  palace  after  his  defeat,  and 
gave  himself  up  to  the  pleasures  of  his  harem  — 

*  See  The  Book  of  Esther,  zuith  Notes  and  Illustrations. 
By  The  Lowell  Hebrew  Club.  Edited  by  John  W.  Haley, 
M.A.     pp.  10-12. 


I04  ESTHER    THE   QUEEN, 

facts  which  perfectly  harmonize  with  the  statements 
made  and  the  dates  given  in  the  second  chapter  of 
this  book.  Moreover,  the  Xerxes  whom  Herodotus 
portrays  exhibits  the  very  same  fits  of  passion, 
caprice,  and  cruelty  which  are  here  attributed  to 
Ahasuerus,  Thus,  when  Pythias,  the  rich  Lydian 
who  had  hospitably  entertained  the  Persian  army 
on  its  way  to  Greece,  and  had  offered  Xerxes  an 
enormous  sum  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  war, 
asked  of  him  as  a  favor  that  the  eldest  of  his  five 
sons,  who  were  all  in  the  army,  should  be  released 
from  military  duty  and  permitted  to  remain  at  home 
with  him  to  be  a  comfort  to  his  declining  years, 
Herodotus  *  tells  U3  that  Xerxes,  in  a  rage,  ordered 
that  the  young  man  should  be  put  to  death  and  that 
his  body  should  be  cut  in  twain,  and  made  his  en- 
tire army  march  between  the  pieces.  The  same 
historian  informs  us  that  when  his  famous  bridge 
over  the  Hellespont  was  broken  up  by  a  storm, 
Xerxes  commanded  that  the  engineers  who  had 
superintended  its  construction  should  be  beheaded ; 
ordered  the  sea  to  be  scourged,  and  childishly 
thought  to  chain  its  'waves  by  sinking  a  few  fetters 
in  its  depths.  He  alleges,  also,  that  after  his  re- 
turn from  his  shameful  defeat  to  Persia,  Xerxes 
sought  to  solace  himself  by  revelling  in  sensual 
pleasures,  even  though  that  involved  the  execution 
of  some  of  his  nearest  relatives.      Now,  all  these 

*  See  Littleljury's  Herodotus,  pp.  387,  390,  540,  543. 


ESTHER    THE    QUEEN.  10$ 

acts  are  so  thoroughly  in  keeping  with  the  arbitrary 
contempt  for  human  feeling  and  human  life  which 
are  ascribed  to  Ahasuerus  in  this  book,  that  we  have 
no  difficulty  in  identifying  the  one  with  the  other. 
But  Xerxes  began  to  reign  in  486  B/C.,  and  died  in 
465  B.C.,  and  so  the  place  of  this  book  in  Jewish  his- 
tory is  between  the  resumption  of  work  on  the  Tem- 
ple by  the  returned  exiles  under  Joshua  and  Zerub- 
babel,  when  Haggai  arid  Zechariah  prophesied,  and 
the  mission  of  Ezra  to  his  countrymen,  and  it  belongs 
chronologically  to  the  long  interval  which  elapsed  be- 
tween the  things  related  in  the  sixth  and  those  men- 
tioned in  the  seventh  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Ezra. 
This  being  the  case,  we  can  at  once  realize  to 
ourselves  the  condition  of  the  Jews  at  the  time. 
The  first  instalment  of  those  who  had  returned  to 
labor  for  the  restoration  of  their  nationality  and 
worship  had  been  now  in  Jerusalem  for  fifty-three 
years,  contending  for  some  of  these  with  cunning 
and  malignant  adversaries ;  but  the  rest  of  the  de- 
scendants of  the  captives  had  elected  to  rem.ain 
in  the  cities  of  their  dispersion,  where  they  were 
kindly  treated  and  fairly  prosperous,  and  were  not, 
it  is  to  be  feared,  either  so  exalted  in  patriotism,  so 
heroic  in  character,  or  so  self-forgetting  in  piety  as 
those  of  whom  we  read  in  the  books  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah.  But  they  were  not  neglected  by  their 
God.  There  was  as  real  a  providence  in  their  re- 
maining where  they  were  as  there  was  in  the  return 
of  the  others  to  their  own  land  ;  for,  if  the  latter 
6* 


I06  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN, 

prepared  a  Palestine  for  the  appearance  of  the 
Messiah,  the  former  made  ready  a  means  of  com- 
munication between  Jews  and  Gentiles  against  the 
coming  of  the  time  when  the  gospel  should  be 
preached  by  Jews  to  all  nations  under  heaven. 

The  scene  of  the  story  is  from  first  to  last  in 
Shushan,  or  Susa,  and  it  may  be  well,  once  for  all, 
to  give  a  description  of  the  place.  The  site  has 
been  found  in  lat.  32°  10'  N.,  long.  48°  26'  E.,  be- 
tween the  rivers  Shapur  and  Dizful.  It  was  orig- 
inally the  capital  of  the  country  called  in  Scripture 
Elam,  and  by  the  classical  writers,  sometimes  Kis- 
sia,  and  sometimes  Sus  or  Susiana.  Its  ruins 
cover  a  space  about  six  thousand  feet  long  from 
east  to  west  by  four  thousand  five  hundred  feet 
from  north  to  south.  The  circumference  of  the 
whole  is  about  three  miles.  They  were  explored 
in  part  in  the  year  185 1  by  General  Williams,  and 
the  exploration  was  resumed  in  the  following  year 
by  Mr.  Loftus.  "  Coming  from  the  west  the  trav- 
eller crosses  the  Shapur,  a  small  stream  flowing 
southward,  and  finds  himself  at  the  base  of  the 
smallest,  but  loftiest"  (of  the  four  mounds  which 
now  mark  the  site),  "  its  extreme  altitude  above  the 
river  being  one  hundred  and  nineteen  feet,  and  the 
circuit  at  the  summit  two  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  fifty  feet.  This  mound  doubtless  represents  the 
citadel  of  Shushan.  Close  by  on  the  north-east  rises 
a  considerable  square  mass  of  some  four  thousand 
feet  in  circuit.     Upon  this  have  been  discovered 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  107 

foundations  of  a  magnificent  hall  of  columns,  erected 
by  Darius  Hystaspis,  consisting  of  thirty-six  pillars 
arranged  in  rows  of  six  each,  and  flanked  on  three 
sides  at  a  distance  of  sixty-three  and  a  half  feet 
by  double  rows  of  pillars,  six  in  each  row.  To  the 
south-east  of  these  mounds,  and  separated  from 
them  by  narrow  valleys,  is  a  great  platform  of  sixty 
acres,  which  reaches  elevations  of  from  forty  to 
seventy  feet,  and  is  three  thousand  feet  long  on 
the  east  side.  These  three  mounds  together  form 
a  diamond-shaped  block,  having  its  angles  nearly 
to  the  cardinal  points,  and  including  above  one 
hundred  acres  of  surface."  * 

More  recently  the  explorations  begun  by  Gen- 
eral Williams  and  Mr.  Loftus  have  been  laboriously 
prosecuted  by  M.  Dieulafoy.  These  have  been  de- 
scribed by  Madame  Dieulafoy  in  an  article  pub- 
lished in  Harper's  Magazine  for  June,  1887,  and 
by  M.  Dieulafoy  himself  in  a  lecture  before  the 
Societe  des  Etudes  juives,  in  Paris,  April,  1888,  of 
which  a  translation  has  appeared  in  the  Bibliothcca 
Sacra  for  October,  1889.  The  plan  of  the  palace 
is  given  by  him  in  the  accompanying  illustration, 
which  will  be  made  more  intelligible  by  the  follow- 
ing extracts  from  the  lecture  itself.  "  The  palace 
was  composed  of  three  groups  of  distinct  apart- 
ments, each  surrounded  by  a  special  enclosure,  but 


*  The  Book  of  Esther.     By  The   Lowell   Hebrew  Club, 
pp.  96.  97. 


[o8 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 


included  within  the  same  fortress.  The  Apadcina, 
or  throne-room,  resembled  in  its  arrangement,  and 
by  its  hypostyle  architecture,  a  Grecian  temple. 
The  King  occupied  in  the  tabernacle  the  place  of 
the  statue  of  the  deity.  The  hall  at  Susa  covers 
nearly  a  hectare  (between  two  and  three  acres): 
the   porticos,  the   stair-ways,  the   enclosures,  were 


imS'Mi^ 


GROUND-PLAN  OF  THE  PALACE  OF  AHASUERUS  AT  SUSA. 


spread  out  upon  a  terrace,  the  area  of  which  was 
eighteen  times  as  large,  and  was  divided  into  two 
parts  by  a  pylon.     On  one  side  a  gigantic  stair-way 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  109 

led  to  the  outside  parade  on  a  level  with  a  wide  es- 
planade. On  the  other  side,  sparkling  in  its  crown 
of  emeralds,  overshadowed  by  the  foliage  of  a 
hanging  garden,  was  the  Apadana,  where  were  re- 
ceived the  ambassadors  of  all  the  States  of  Greece. 
The  private  apartments  of  the  sovereign  were  dis- 
tant from  the  Apadaiia,  and  grouped  around  an 
interior  court,  with  the  hall  of  audience,  bedrooms, 
apartments  appropriated  to  the  chancellor's  office, 
to  the  military  house,  to  the  guard,  to  the  depend- 
ants. In  modern  Persian,  this  part  of  the  palace 
is  called  the  Binin  (exterior),  in  contrast  to  the 
Anderoun  (interior  harem),  reserved  for  the  women. 
The  Anderoun  comprises  the  apartments  of  the 
queens  and  quite  a  large  number  of  cells  for  the 
concubines  of  second  rank,  and  for  the  postulants 
for  the  royal  favors.  The  master  of  this  depart- 
ment is  not  so  much  the  King,  as  the  grand  eunuch. 
The  Anderotm  of  Susa,  walled,  padlocked,  and  more 
tightly  closed — I  speak  only  from  a  constructive 
point  of  view — than  even  the  most  rigorous  prison, 
is  protected  by  the  buildings  of  the  Biriin  and  the 
Apadana.  The  last  two,  recognizable  in  the  accom- 
panying plan  by  their  separation,  and  by  the  tower 
(keep)  connected  with  the  private  dwelling  of  the 
King,  occupy  the  two  branches  of  a  gigantic  L, 
whose  transept  was  reserved  for  the  women's  apart- 
ments. Leaving  the  Anderoun  by  the  west  door, 
one  would  step  out  directly  into  the  gardens  of  the 
Apadhna;  walking  towards  the   south,  one   would 


no  ESTHER  THE   QUEEN. 

cross  the  Birtin.  The  palace  had  numerous  en- 
trances. I  will  mention  the  fortified  gate  of  the 
King's  house,  and  the  gate  of  the  general  enclosure 
which  opened  to  the  south  of  the  tower,  and  was 
the  means  of  communication  between  the  acropolis 
and  the  city  of  Susa."*  It  was,  according  to  M. 
Dieulafoy,  at  this  gate  that  Mordecai  was  wont  to 
sit,  and  it  was  in  the  Apadana  that  the  banquet  de- 
scribed in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Esther 
was  held.  It  is  interesting  to  add  that,  although 
he  speaks  of  the  legend  of  Esther,  M.  Dieulafoy 
has  declared  that  "the  excavations  at  Susa  not 
only  confirm  the  architectural  descriptions  of  the 
Book  of  Esther,  but  even  the  smallest  details  of  the 
story,"t  and  affirms  that  "  the  epoch  in  which  the 
Hebrew  version  of  the  book  was  written  may  be 
fixed  in  the  fourth  century,  B.C.,"  and  that  "it  was 
written  honestly  at  Susa  by  a  Susian  Jew,  and  goes 
back  for  its  Hebrew  compilation  to  this  side  of  the 
accession  of  Artaxerxes  Mnemon,  and  far  beyond 
the  Parthian  conquest,  "t  The  Importance  of  these 
details,  both  for  the  illustration  and  defence  of  the  ' 
book,  must  be  my  apology  for  the  length  of  the 
quotations  which  I  have  made. 

As  to  the  authorship  of  the  book  nothing  certain 
can  now  be  determined,  but  some  have  supposed 
that  the  twentieth  and  twenty-first  verses  of  the 
ninth  chapter,  which  say  "  Mordecai  wrote  these 

*  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  October,  1889,  pp.  638,  639. 
f  Idem  p.  646.  X  ^^^"^  P-  653. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  Ill 

things  and  sent  letters  unto  all  the  Jews  that  were 
in  all  the  provinces  of  the  King  Ahasuerus,  to  stab- 
lish  this  among  them  that  they  should  keep  the 
fourteenth  day  of  the  month  Adar,  and  the  fifteenth 
day  of  the  same  year  yearly,"  are  equivalent  to  an 
assertion  that  Mordecai  was  the  author.  The  ref- 
erence of  these  verses,  however,  is  to  the  establish- 
ment of  the  feast  of  Purim,  and  they  are  too  nar- 
row a  foundation  on  which  to  build  the  inference 
that  he  wrote  the  whole  book,  however  otherwise 
probable  that  may  have  been.  Others  have  as- 
cribed its  production  to  Ezra,  and  others  still  to 
Joiakim  the  high-priest ;  but  these  are  only  guesses, 
as  also  is  the  opinion  of  Rawlinson*  that  "it  was 
written  by  a  younger  contemporary  of  Mordecai, 
who  put  the  facts  on  record  towards  the  middle  of 
the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  Longimanus,  when  they 
were  in  danger  of  being  forgotten  by  the  passing 
away  of  the  generation  that  had  witnessed  them." 
The  writer  has  kept  his  own  name,  as  such,  out  of 
his  book,  as  well  as  the  name  of  God.  For  what 
reason  he  has  done  so,  or  who  he  was,  or  in  what 
circumstances  he  wrote — all  these  are  equally  un- 
known. But  the  book  itself  is  not  discredited  any 
more  than  is  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  by  its 
being  anonymous,  for  it  bears  throughout  the 
marks  of  its  veracity.  As  we  have  seen,  the  name 
Achashverosh  is  the  exact  transliteration  into  He- 

*  Speakers  Commentary,  vol.  iii.,  p.  470. 


112  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

brew  of  the  Persian  name  of  Xerxes;  its  chronol- 
ogy harmonizes  exactly  with  that  elsewhere  given 
of  the  early  years  of  that  monarch's  reign,  and  his 
character  as  depicted  here  is  precisely  parallel  with 
that  which  comes  out  in  other  histories  of  his 
doings,  while  the  descriptions  of  the  manners  and 
customs  of  the  Persian  court  are  so  minute  and  so 
accurate  as  to  convey  the  impression  that  the  story 
in  which  these  occur  is  thoroughly  authentic.  It 
is  indeed  true  that  we  have  no  direct  confirmation 
of  the  narrative  from  profane  history,  but  no  other 
book  treats  of  the  same  times  in  such  a  way  as  to 
come  into  comparison  with  it.  As  Rawlinson  has 
said :  "  No  contradiction  is  to  be  found  between  it 
and  the  established  facts  of  history.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  narrative  is  in  harmony  with  those  facts  : 
completes  very  happily  the  portraiture  of  Xerxes 
and  his  court;  agrees  with,  but  goes  beyond,  the 
descriptions  of  Persian  life  and  manners  which 
have  otherwise  come  down  to  us ;  has  the  air  of 
being  by  a  contemporary ;  and  if  untrue,  might 
have  easily  been  proved  to  be  untrue  at  the  time 
when  it  was  published,  by  reference  to  the  extant 
*  book  of  the  chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Media  and 
Persia,'  which  it  quotes."  *  Nor  must  we  forget  that 
the  feast  of  Purim  has  been  observed  by  the  Jews 
annually  from  the  very  time  of  the  occurrences 
which  are  here  recorded  down  to  our  own  days, 

*  Speaker  s  Commentary,  vol.  iii. ,  p.  472. 


ESTHER    THE   QUEEN,  II3 

and  is  thus,  to  the  incidents  of  the  Book  of  Esther, 
what  the  Passover  is  to  the  Exodus,  or  the  Lord's 
Supper  to  the  passion  of  our  Saviour. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  we  conclude  that  though 
the  author  of  this  book  is  unknown,  its  credibility 
and  canonical  authority  are  thoroughly  established  ; 
that  the  facts  which  it  records  occurred  in  the 
reign  of  Xerxes,  otherwise  known  to  us  as  the  un- 
successful invader  of  Greece ;  that  its  chronological 
place  among  the  books  of  the  Bible  is  after  Daniel, 
and  the  first  six  chapters  of  Ezra;  and  that  it  nar- 
rates the  history  of  an  important  crisis  in  the  ex- 
perience of  the  Jews  of  the  dispersion,  just  sixteen 
years  before  Artaxerxes  issued  the  letter  which 
Ezra  carried  with  him  to  the  governors  beyond  the 
river,  and  twenty-nine  years  before  Nehemiah  ex- 
changed for  a  season  his  post  of  cup-bearer  in  the 
palace  of  Shushan  for  that  of  restorer  and  gov- 
ernor of  Jerusalem. 

We  have  thus  taken  our  historical  bearings,  and 
may  now  intelligently  proceed  to  the  exposition  of 
the  book  itself.  But  we  cannot  enter  upon  that 
now,  and  we  conclude  these  preliminary  state- 
ments with  Matthew  Henry's  somewhat  quaint  yet 
very  pertinent  and  pithy  summary  to  this  effect. 
"  It  is  the  narrative  of  a  plot  laid  against  the  Jews, 
to  cut  them  off,  and  wonderfully  disappointed  by 
a  concurrence  of  providences.  The  most  compen- 
dious exposition  of  it  will  be  to  read  it  deliberately 
altogether  at  one  sitting;  for  the  latter  events  ex- 


114  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

pound  the  former,  and  show  what  Providence  in- 
tended in  them.  .  .  .  The  particulars  are  not  only 
surprising  and  very  entertaining,  but  edifying  and 
very  encouraging  to  the  faith  and  hope  of  God's 
people,  in  the  most  difficult  and  dangerous  times. 
We  cannot  now  expect  such  miracles  to  be  wrought 
for  us  as  were  for  Israel  when  they  were  brought 
out  of  Egypt ;  but  we  may  expect  that  in  such 
ways  as  God  here  took  to  defeat  Haman's  plot. 
He  will  still  protect  His  people.  .  .  .  The  whole  story 
confirms  the  Psalmist's  observation :  The  wicked 
plotteth  against  the  just,  and  gnasheth  upon  him 
with  his  teeth.  The  Lord  shall  laugh  at  him;  for 
He  seeth  that  His  day  is  coming."* 


11. 

A  GREAT  FEAST,  AND  WHAT  CAME  OF  IT. 
Esther  I.,  1-22. 

After  the  full  description  of  Shushan  the  palace, 
given  in  the  last  lecture,  there  is  no  need  now  to 
say  more  concerning  the  place  at  which  the  feast 
described  in  this  opening  chapter  was  held.  The 
festivities  lasted,  as  we  are  told,  for  a  hundred  and 

*  Psalms  xxxvii.,  12,  13. 


ESTHER    THE    QUEEN.  II5 

eighty  days,  and  the  long  continuance  of  such  oc- 
casions among  the  Persians  has  been  particularly 
remarked  upon  by  ancient  writers.  But  probably 
the  statement  in  the  narrative  before  us  does  not 
imply  that  precisely  the  same  persons  sat  down  in 
the  same  gorgeously  pillared  banquet-hall  day  after 
day  for  half  a  year.  For  the  guests  were  "  all  the 
princes  and  servants,  the  power  of  Persia  and  Me- 
dia, the  nobles  and  princes  of  the  provinces;"  and 
it  is  hardly  likely  that  all  the  chief  representatives 
of  the  Emperor,  from  India  to  Ethiopia,  were  simul- 
taneously absent  for  so  long  a  time  from  their  seats 
of  government.  It  may  be  that  they  came  in  re- 
lays, and  that  as  the  first  comers  went,  others  took 
their  places ;  while  as  these  departed  they  were  re- 
placed by  others,  until  all  of  them  had  been  received 
and  entertained.  Perhaps,  therefore,  the  writer 
simply  means  to  say  that  the  festive  time  lasted 
for  half  a  year;  that  during  all  these  six  months 
state  banquets  were  frequent;  that  at  their  close, 
the  object  contemplated  by  the  Emperor  having 
been  attained,  a  fete  of  seven  days  was  given  to  the 
inhabitants  of  Shushan  itself,  and  that  in  the  gar- 
dens surrounding  the  palace  they  were  regaled  with 
the  choicest  meats  and  the  richest  wines,  while  all 
around  them  were  the  most  gorgeous  fabrics  which 
skill  could  make  or  wealth  could  purchase. 

Now,  concerning  this  great  festival,  some  particu- 
lars are  noteworthy.  The  occasion  on  which  it  was 
held  must  not  be  lost  sight  of,  though  the  author  of 


Il6  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

this  book  passes  it  over  in  silence.  It  was  the  third 
year  of  the  reign  of  Xerxes.  Now,  we  know  from 
the  Greek  historian  Herodotus  that  in  that  very 
year  Xerxes  "  summoned  a  council  of  the  principal 
Persians,  as  well  to  hear  their  opinions  as  to  declare 
his  own,"  on  the  matter  of  the  invasion  of  Greece. 
At  first,  on  his  accession  to  the  throne,  we  are  told 
that  "he  showed  little  disposition  to  make  war 
against  Greece,  and  turned  his  thoughts  to  the  re- 
duction of  Egypt;"  but  after  he  had  succeeded  in 
Egypt,  he  was  all  the  more  inclined  to  listen  to  the 
advice  of  his  cousin  Mardonius,  and  seek  to  punish 
the  Athenians  for  the  defeat  of  his  father  at  Mara- 
thon. Accordingly,  at  the  council  assembled  in 
Shushan,  he  declared  his  purpose  "  to  lay  a  bridge 
over  the  Hellespont,  and  to  transport  an  army  into 
Greece  that  he  might  punish  the  Athenians  for  the 
injuries  they  had  done  to  the  Persians  and  to  his 
father."  Nay,  not  content  with  that,  he  added : 
"  I  intend,  with  your  concurrence,  to  march  through 
all  the  parts  of  Europe,  and  to  reduce  the  whole 
earth  into  one  empire ;  being  well  assured  that  no 
city  or  nation  of  the  world  will  dare  to  resist  my  arms 
after  the  reduction  of  those  I  have  mentioned."  * 
He  was  opposed  by  his  uncle,  Artabanus,  but 
ultimately,  under  the  influence  of  Mardonius  and 
some  illusory  oracles  which  fell  in  with  his  own 
ambition,  the  die  was  cast  and  the  decision  was 

*  See  Herodotus,  Book  VII.,  passim. 


ESTHER    THE    QUEEN.  II7 

made  to  prepare  for  and  carry  out  the  invasion  of 
Greece  with  such  an  army  as  the  world  had  never 
before  seen. 

Now,  it  was  in  connection  with  this  determination, 
and  in  order,  as  I  believe,  to  give  the  greatest  pos- 
sible impulse  to  the  carrying  out  of  the  enterprise 
so  resolved  on,  that  this  long-continued  fete  was 
held.  The  author  of  the  Book  of  Esther,  indeed, 
merely  says  that  his  desire  was  "  to  show  the  riches 
of  his  glorious  kingdom  and  the  honor  of  his  excel- 
lent majesty;"  but  that  is  in  nowise  inconsistent 
with  the  supposition  that  his  purpose  in  showing 
these  things  was  to  give  eclat  to  the  undertaking  on 
which  he  was  entering,  and  to  remove  .from  the 
minds  of  his  satraps  all  misgivings  concerning  its 
success.  He  wanted  to  produce  in  them  the  con- 
viction that  with  such  resources  as  he  had  at  his 
command,  it  was  impossible  that  he  should  fail. 
This  accounts  for  the  magnificent  scale  on  which 
everything  was  done.  The  pillars  were  of  marble ; 
the  couches  were  of  gold;  the  pavement  was  of 
tessellated  marble-,  there  was  royal  wine  without 
stint,  and  each  one  drank  out  of  a  vessel  of  gold, 
which  was  of  a  different  design  from  all  the  rest. 
Ev^erything  was  luxuriant  and  expensive.  Ostenta- 
tion was  the  order  of  the  day.  The  great  end 
which  the  monarch  had  in  viev/  was  to  make  a  dis- 
play, and  he  made  it  with  more  than  the  usual  Ori- 
ental regardlessness  of  cost,  so  that  there  might  not 
be  left  in  any  mind  a  single  lingering  suspicion  of 


Il8  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

the  sufficiency  of  his  resources  for  the  great  expedi- 
tion to  which  he  was  summoning  his  subjects.  It 
looks  supremely  foolish,  but  it  is  a  folly  that  keeps 
its  ground  to  this  day  even  in  western  lands — where 
it  is  still  the  fashion  for  men  to  banquet  themselves 
into  enthusiasm  for  some  great  railway  enterprise 
or  some  party  campaign.  Truly,  we  have  not  learned 
so  much  in  these  modern  days  as  we  think  we  have, 
and  it  might  be  wisdom  in  us  to  unlearn  a  few  of  the 
extravagances  in  which  we  are  so  prone  to  indulge. 
But  one  feature  of  this  feast  given  by  Xerxes 
strikes  us  as  praiseworthy.  It  is  said  that  "the 
drinking  was  according  to  the  law,  none  did  com- 
pel." All  were  left  to  do  according  to  their  own 
pleasure.  He  that  partook  did  not  despise  him 
who  abstained,  and  he  that  abstained  did  not  en- 
deavor to  force  his  practice  on  him  who  partook. 
Each  was  at  perfect  liberty  to  do  as  his  own  judg- 
ment dictated.  Now,  when  we  contrast  that  with 
the  custom  which  used  to  be  maintained  by  our 
fathers,  of  pressing  guests  to  drink  whether  they 
would  or  not,  until  it  became  difficult — almost  im- 
possible, for  them,  indeed,  decently  to  refuse — we 
must  confess  that  the  difference  is  all  in  favor  of 
the  ancient  Persians  ;  and  the  statement  here  made 
reminds  us  of  an  incident  which  is  said  to  have  oc- 
curred at  the  table  of  Queen  Victoria  in  one  of  the 
early  years  of  her  reign.  The  temperance  move- 
ment was  then  just  beginning  to  make  its  way  into 
the  upper  classes  of  English  society,  and  on  the 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN,  II9 

occasion  to  which  I  refer,  a  British  nobleman,  well 
known  for  his  activity  in  all  good  causes,  declined 
to  comply  with  the  request  of  one  of  his  fellow- 
guests  that  he  should  drink  wine  with  him,  where- 
upon the  appeal  was  made  to  her  Majesty  that  she 
should  assert  her  authority  in  the  case ;  but  she  no- 
bly replied,  in  the  spirit  of  this  Persian  law,  "  There 
shall  be  no  compulsion  at  my  table ;"  and  that  re- 
ply did  much  to  discountenance  the  old  custom  of 
badgering,  and  browbeating,  and  insisting  upon 
guests  to  drink  out  of  regard  for  their  hosts  until 
they  felt  themselves  in  a  position  where  it  was  dif- 
ficult to  refuse,  and  were  virtually  compelled  either 
to  act  against  their  better  judgment,  or  to  do  that 
which  was  considered  rude  and  unmannerly.  We 
have  reason  to  be  thankful  that,  alike  in  Great  Brit- 
ain and  in  this  land,  the  Temperance  Reformation 
has  gained  such  a  footing  that  now,  as  Dr.  Raleigh 
says,*  "within  the  whole  sphere  of  what  is  called 
society,  anything  approaching  compulsion  would 
not  be  tolerated,  and,  in  fact,  is  never  attempted." 
Much  more  is  needed,  as  we  shall  presently  see, 
before  we  shall  have  succeeded  in  purging  ourselves 
from  the  plague  of  intemperance ;  but  that  is  at 
least  one  point  gained,  and  the  gaining  of  that  is 
due,  more  than  to  any  other  influence  among  us, 
to  the  efforts  of  our  temperance  societies. 

Another  feature  of  this  feast  was  the  absence  of 
*  The  Book  of  Esther :  Its  Practical  Lessons  and  Dramatic 
Scenes.     By  Alexander  Raleigh,  D.D.     p.  15. 


I20  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN, 

the  ladies  from  the  board.  They  had  their  own 
festival,  indeed,  but  they  held  it  by  themselves ;  be- 
cause then,  as  indeed  they  are  throughout  the  East 
until  this  day,  the  women  were  kept  in  uttermost  se- 
clusion, and,  according  to  the  public  opinion  of  the 
time,  it  would  have  been  in  the  highest  degree  im- 
:  modest  for  any  of  them  to  be  present  on  such  an 
occasion  as  the  banquet  given  by  the  Emperor  to 
the  inhabitants  of  Shushan.  It  was  no  great  priva- 
tion to  the  ladies,  but  their  absence  was  fraught 
with  danger  to  the  men,  for  it  left  them  without  any 
check  to  indulge  to  the  full  in  the  revelries  of  the 
hour ;  and  in  bygone  times  among  ourselves  it  was 
only  after  the  ladies  had  left  the  table  that  the  men 
permitted  themselves  to  drink  to  excess,  and  to  re- 
tail stories  that  were  utterly  unfit  for  modest  women 
to  hear  or  a  modest  man  to  tell.  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  this  is  the  case  still  in  some  circles  that  call 
themselves  polite,  but  it  ought  everyv/here  to  be 
frowned  upon  and  put  down. 

In  the  case  before  us,  the  law  that  none  should 
be  compelled  to  drink  was  largely  neutralized  by 
the  example  of  Xerxes  himself,  for  towards  the  end 
of  the  feast  he  became  heated  with  v/ine,  and  then 
was  guilty  of  an  act  which  stamps  him  as  essential- 
ly a  low,  sensual,  and  unfeeling  tyrant ;  for  he  gave 
orders  that  Vashti,  his  queen,  his  favorite  wife  and 
the  chief  inmate  of  his  harem,  should  appear  among 
the  revellers  "with  the  crown  royal,  to  show  the 
people  and  the  princes  her  beauty."     His  design 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  121 

apparently  was  that  she  should  come  unveiled,  in 
order  that  all  should  envy  him  the  possession  of 
such  a  lovely  wife.  If  Ahasuerus  is  to  be  identified 
with  Xerxes,  it  is  probable  that  Vashti  is  the  same 
as  the  Amestris  who  is  spoken  of  by  the  Greeks  as 
the  wife  of  Xerxes,  and  whom  he  must  have  wed- 
ded before  his  accession  to  the  throne.  But  how- 
ever that  may  have  been,  the  command  of  the 
King  required  her  to  do  what  was  inconsistent 
with  national  usage,  and  as  such  would  have  been 
regarded  as  a  violation  of  her  modesty.  Her  obe- 
dience to  it  would  have  degraded  her  not  only  in 
her  own  estimation,  but  also  in  that  of  the  whole 
community.  According  to  the  public  sentiment  of 
the  time,  she  could  not  view  the  order  otherwise 
than  as  an  insult  to  her  womanhood  and  a  slur  upon 
her  honor.  Therefore  she  set  it  at  defiance,  and 
refused  "  to  come  at  the  King's  commandment." 

Opinions  have  differed  concerning  the  wisdom 
of  her  conduct,  and  some,  who  apparently  think 
it  needful  to  degrade  Vashti  in  order  to  exalt  Es- 
ther, have  condemned  her  for  her  disobedience. 
But,  for  my  part,  I  consider  it  worthy  of  all  praise, 
and  hold  that  she  was  entirely  right  in  what  she 
did.  It  is  true  that  by  the  appointment  of  God 
the  husband  is  the  head  of  the  wife,  but  the  head- 
ship is  not  absolute  and  autocratic.  Here,  too,  the 
government  must  be  constitutional  and  within  lim- 
its which  have  been  fixed  by  the  Lord  himself.    No 

husband  has  a  right  to  command  a  wife  to  do  that 
6 


12  2  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

which  is  wrong,  and  liberty  of  conscience  ought  to 
be  as  sacred  in  the  home  as  in  the  State.  In  all 
matters  of  indifference  morally,  in  all  questions  of 
mere  prudence,  in  all  affairs  of  management  and 
detail  where  no  principle  is  involved,  if  there  should 
be  an  honest  difference  of  opinion  between  the  two, 
the  will  of  the  husband  should  be  carried  out,  and 
no  true  wife  will  ever  think  of  doing  otherwise  ;  but 
where  conscience  is  concerned,  where  principle  is 
at  stake,  where  character  is  affected,  the  wife  should 
be  left  to  act  upon  her  own  convictions,  and  no 
right-thinking  husband  would  ask  her  to  do  other- 
wise. This,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  constitution 
on  which  household  government  rests ;  and  though 
it  is  always  an  evidence  that  there  is  something 
radically  wrong  when  the  matter  comes  to  be  dis- 
puted, yet  the  knowledge  of  these  limits  may  keep 
things  from  coming  to  such  a  pass,  and  may  lead 
to  that  mutual  respect  for  each  other's  convictions 
as  to  duty  which  is  essential  alike  to  domestic  peace 
and  to  loyalty  to  God  on  the  part  both  of  husband 
and  wife. 

The  reply  of  Vashti  set  Xerxes  on  fire  with  rage; 
and  his  counsellors  being,  like  himself,  heated  with 
wine,  and  so  all  the  more  likely  to  be  the  mere 
"dittoes"  of  their  master,  did  not  mend  matters 
by  their  advice.  To  think  of  conquering  Greece 
while  he  allowed  a  woman  to  set  him  at  defiance 
was  in  their  view  absolutely  absurd.  They  feared, 
withal,  that  the  spirit  of  Vashti  might  become  in- 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  1 23 

fectious-  and  spread  throughout  their  own  harems, 
and  so  they  insisted  that  Xerxes  should  put  Vashti 
away,  and  gave  also  a  recommendation,  the  result 
of  which  is  thus  recorded :  "  The  saying  pleased 
the  king  and  the  princes  ;  and  the  king  did  accord- 
ing to  the  word  of  Memucan  :  for  he  sent  letters 
into  all  the  king's  provinces,  into  every  province 
according  to  the  v/riting  thereof,  and  to  every  peo- 
ple after  their  language,  that  every  man  should  bear 
rule  in  his  own  house,  and  that  it  should  be  pub- 
lished according  to  the  language  of  every  people." 
What  a  "  ridiculous  mouse  "  is  this,  as  the  fruit  of 
such  "  labor  "  in  the  "  mountains  !"  One  can  hardly 
keep  from  laughing  outright  as  he  reads  the  words. 
Truly,  family  government  is  near  an  end  when  it 
needs  to  be  bolstered  up  by  an  imperial  decree ! 
And  what  mere  edict  can  make  a  man  worthy  to 
bear  rule  in  his  own  house  ?  for,  after  all,  the  gist 
of  the  matter  lies  there.  A  man  must  rule  himself 
first,  if  he  would  regulate  well  the  affairs  of  his  own 
household,  and  for  self-rule  something  else  is  need- 
ed than  an  imperial  decree.  "Truly,"  as  Dr.  Kitto 
says,  "  one  is  amazed  at  the  infantine  simplicity  of 
these  famous  sages  in  recommending  the  issue  of  a 
royal  decree,  in  all  the  languages  of  this  great  em- 
pire, '  that  every  man  should  bear  rule  in  his  own 
house.'  This  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  amus- 
ing things  in  all  history.  One  cannot  but  imagine 
the  inextinguishable  burst  of  shrill  merriment  which 
rang  through  every  one  of  '  the  hundred  and  twen- 


124  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

ty-seven '  provinces  of  the  Persian  empire  when  this 
sage  decree  was  promulgated."*  It  must  be  that 
Ahasuerus  and  Xerxes  are  identical,  for  only  one 
who  could  imagine  that  he  could  bind  the  Helles- 
pont with  a  few  iron  fetters,  could  have  supposed 
that  he  could  reduce  women  into  absolutely  passive 
submission  to  the  autocracy  of  their  husbands  by 
the  publication  of  an  edict !  Not  thus  is  domestic 
peace  or  household  happiness  to  be  attained.  When 
the  law  comes  into  that  relationship,  alas !  it  is  to 
divide  and  not  to  unite ;  and  when  the  apostle's 
command,  "  Husbands,  love  your  wives,  even  as 
Christ  loved  the  church  and  gave  himself  for  it," 
is  faithfully  obeyed  by  those  to  whom  it  is  address- 
ed, there  will  be  no  need  of  a  civil  enactment  to  en- 
force this  other :  "  Therefore  as  the  church  is  sub- 
ject unto  Christ,  so  let  the  wives  be  to  their  own 
husbands  in  everything."  But  if  a  man  makes  him- 
self heated  with  wine,  and  issues  orders  that  are 
abominable,  he  only  makes  himself  ridiculous  when 
he  talks  of  his  determination  "  to  rule  his  own 
house."  He  has  ceased  to  be  the  ruler  of  him- 
self ;  and  if  a  man  know  not  how  to  be  that,  he  is 
incapable  of  ruling  his  house. 

But  now  let  us  pick  up  a  few  lessons  from  this 
old  history  that  may  be  useful  to  us  in  our  daily 
lives.  And,  first  of  all,  we  are  reminded  by  the  in- 
cidents which  have  passed  under  our  review  that 

♦  Daily  Bible  Illustrations,  vol.  iv.,  p.  487. 


ESTHER  THE   QUEEN.  125 

over-confidence  is  the  forerunner  of  failure.  The 
proverb  says  that  "  pride  goeth  before  destruction, 
and  a  haughty  spirit  before  a  fall ;"  and  Ahab 
showed  more  wisdom  than  was  common  with  him 
when  he  sent  to  Ben-hadad  this  message:  "Tell 
him,  Let  not  him  that  girdeth  on  his  harness  boast 
himself  as  he  that  putteth  it  off."*  With  an  empire 
so  large  as  to  be  already  unwieldy,  Xerxes  might 
well  have  been  content  with  what  he  had;  yet  he 
must  needs  seek  to  wipe  out  the  disgrace  of  his  fa- 
ther's defeat  at  Marathon  by  the  Greeks,  and  try 
for  universal  empire  for  himself.  But  as  the  unsuc- 
cessful gambler  stakes  more  heavily  than  before, 
thinking  to  recover  thereby  all  that  he  has  lost,  and 
ends  by  losing  more  heavily  than  ever,  so  Xerxes 
suffered  a  more  disgraceful  defeat  than  his  father. 
The  little  country  of  Greece  hurled  back  his  legions 
in  dismay,  and  wrought  prodigies  of  valor  which 
have  been  for  an  inspiration  to  all  who  have  battled 
for  freedom  in  the  world  ever  since,  and  which  have 
made  the  name  of  Thermopylae  everlastingly  re- 
nowned, while  the  defeat  of  his  fleet  at  Salamis, 
even  though  he  sat  himself  upon  a  lofty  throne  in 
sight  of  all  his  ships  to  stir  his  sailors  to  enthusiasm 
by  his  presence,  was  so  speedy  and  so  complete  as 
to  give  point  to  Byron's  lines  : 

A  king  sat  on  the  rocky  brow 
That  looks  o'er  sea-born  Salamis, 

*  I  Kings  XX.,  II. 


126  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

And  ships  in  thousands  lay  below 

And  men  in  nations — all  were  his ; 
He  counted  them  at  break  of  day, 
But  when  the  sun  set,  where  were  they? 

Nor  are  we  without  an  interest  in  the  victory  they 
won,  for  it  was  one  of  the  decisive  days  of  the  world, 
and  but  for  it  Oriental  despotism  might  still  have 
brooded  over  the  fairest  countries  of  Europe,  and 
the  whole  history  of  the  world  been  changed.  Now, 
I  do  not  say  that  Xerxes  failed  simply  because  he 
was  so  confident  that  he  v/ould  succeed ;  or  that  if 
he  had  begun  his  campaign  of  invasion  with  less  of 
ostentation  and  bravado  he  would  have  conquered. 
But  the  issue  of  his  expedition  contrasts  very  sug- 
gestively with  the  braggadocio  of  its  beginning,  and 
is  a  warning  to  all  not  to  rejoice  over  a  victory  un- 
til it  has  been  won.  There  have  been  many  similar 
cases  in  history.  As  we  read  the  account  of  this 
banquet,  we  cannot  help  thinking  of  the  ispirit  in 
which  the  first  Napoleon  began  his  march  to  Rus- 
sia, and  the  terrible  result  of  his  obstinate  rashness 
on  that  occasion.  Nor  can  we  forget  how  within 
these  last  few  weeks  *  the  King  Milan,  of  Servia, 
has  been  reproved  for  his  Thrasonic  declaration, 
that  he  would  keep  his  birthday  in  Sofia,  the  capi- 
tal of  Bulgaria.  But  the  lesson  is  good  for  other  de- 
partments than  that  of  war,  and  it  reads  thus,  Young 
man,  don't  say  with  conceited  boasting  what  you  will 

*  This  was  written  in  January,  1886. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  127 

do,  but  do  it,  and  let  the  deed  speak  both  for  itself 
and  you.  See  first,  however,  that  it  be  a  deed  worth 
doing,  and  not  merely  the  gratification  of  a  selfish 
and  unscrupulous  ambition. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  let  us  note  here  the  evils 
of  intemperance.  If  Xerxes  had  not  been  "heated 
with  wine,"  he  never  would  have  given  such  an  or- 
der to  Vashti.  Mark  the  phrase  "heated  with  wine." 
It  does  not  say  that  he  was  actually  drunk.  I  call 
your  attention  to  that,  because  I  believe  that  a  vast 
deal  of  evil  is  wrought  in  the  world  by  drinking  that 
is  short  of  intoxication.  As  McCrie  has  admirably 
put  it,  "  There  is  a  difference  between  not  being  in- 
toxicated and  being  sober.  A  person  may  be  able 
to  speak  and  to  walk,  and  yet  may  be  guilty  of  excess 
in  the  use  of  strong  drink.  He  may  not  have  lost 
the  use  of  his  senses,  and  yet  have  lost  the  sound 
use  of  his  senses."  *  It  is  my  firm  belief  that  the 
great  majority  of  accidents  in  the  use  of  machinery 
or  of  dangerous  agencies,  such  as  steam,  electricity, 
and  the  Kke,  is  due  to  this  kind  of  drinking.  The 
man  has  taken  enough  to  disturb  the  balance  of  his 
nature.  His  conceit  and  confidence  are  stimulated ; 
his  judgment  is  weakened  ;  his  will  is  stiffened,  and 
he  is  made  reckless  when  otherwise  he  would  have 
been  cautious.  If  an  inquiry  were  to  be  held,  it 
could  not  be  affirmed  by  any  one  that  he  was  drunk. 
But,  for  all  that,  he  had  been  guilty  of  what  for  him 

*  Lectures  on  Esther.  By  Thomas  McCrie,  D.D.,  American 
edition,  pp.  31,  32. 


128  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

was  excess.  Now,  in  these  circumstances,  does  not 
prudence  dictate  that  the  man  should  let  it  alone 
altogether  ?  His  own  safety  and  the  safety  of  oth- 
ers are  imperilled  by  his  partaking  of  it  even  in  what 
others  would  call  moderation,  and  therefore  he  ought 
always  to  be  on  his  guard ;  and  as  the  surest  means 
of  keeping  right,  he  had  better  abstain  entirely. 

But  if  that  be  so  with  drinking  that  is  short  of 
intoxication,  what  must  be  said  of  the  actual  drunk- 
enness which  is  so  rampant  in  the  midst  of  us  ?  It 
is  a  large  question,  and  I  cannot  discuss  it  fully 
here.  Let  me  only  remark  that  the  question  has 
three  departments,  according  as  we  look  at  the  drunk- 
ard's appetite,  the  drinking  customs,  and  the  liquor 
trade.  Now,  as  to  the  first  of  these  :  when  a  man  is 
held  in  the  grasp  of  the  drunkard's  appetite  there  is 
no  cure  for  him  save  in  absolute  and  entire  absti- 
nence. His  indulgence  has  so  diseased  his  body 
that  he  cannot  taste  it  without  having  created  in 
him  an  irresistible  craving  for  more.  Clearly,  there- 
fore, he  should  never  touch  it  again  ;  and  to  encour- 
age him  in  taking  that  course  Christian  love  should 
prompt  others  to  take  it  with  him,  and  to  say,  "  If 
drink  make  my  brother  to  offend,  I  will  drink  no 
wine  while  the  world  stands.  It  is  good  neither  to 
drink  wine  nor  to  do  anything  whereby  a  brother 
stumbleth  or  is  made  weak."  That  is  the  true 
Scriptural  ground  on  which  the  total  abstinence 
movement  rests,  and  to  put  it  on  any  other  basis  is 
to  weaken  its  appeal  to  Christian  men. 


ESTHER  THE   QUEEN.  129 

Looking  now  at  the  drinking  customs,  the  cure  is 
to  abolish  and  discredit  them.  I  think  it  is  capable 
of  proof  that  the  existing  customs  in  the  matter  of 
drink  are  very  largely  responsible  for  the  manufact- 
ure of  drunkards.  So  long  as  strong  drink  is  the  rec- 
ognized medium  of  showing  kindness  or  hospitality 
to  a  friend  or  companion,  so  long  shall  we  have  to 
deplore  the  fall  of  many  young  and  noble  men  into 
intemperate  habits.  Therefore,  smite  these  cus- 
toms as  with  the  hammer  of  Thor.  Destroy  them 
out  of  society  and  the  land.  Put  away  strong  drink 
from  the  table  as  a  beverage,  and  never  conform  to 
the  custom  of  indulging  in  it  as  a  mere  libation  to 
fashion.  Why  should  a  man  to  whom  you  have 
shown  a  kindness  say  to  you,  "  Come  and  have  a 
drink,"  and  you  do  not  laugh  at  him  as  you  would 
if  he  said,  **  Here  is  a  baker's  shop ;  come  and  have 
a  cake  ?"  Or  why  would  everybody  laugh  at  me  at  a 
banquet  if  I  should  say,  "  Let  us  eat  to  the  health  of 
the  President,"  and  should  hold  up  the  wing  of  a 
chicken  on  the  point  of  my  fork  for  the  purpose; 
while  if  I  should  say,  "  Let  us  drink  to  the  health  of 
the  President,"  everybody  would  cheer  ?  Intrinsi- 
cally the  one  is  as  ridiculous  as  the  other.  Only  the 
custom  makes  the  difference,  and  that  custom  car- 
ries drunkenness  with  it  as  its  lawful  progeny. 
Dethrone  the  customs,  therefore,  and  set  some- 
thing worthier  in  their  room.  Much  has  been 
done  in  this  way  already,  but  there  is  need  for 
the  doing  of  a  great  deal  more,  and  no  patriot 
6» 


130  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

should  be  reluctant   to   put   his   hand  to   such  a 
work. 

Then,  last  of  all,  there  comes  in  the  trade  aspect 
of  the  case.  The  trade  is  licensed  by  the  law.  In 
one  view  that  may  mean  that  it  is  encouraged  by 
the  law ;  and  it  does  seem  very  inconsistent  to 
license  people  to  sell  strong  drink,  and  then  to 
keep  a  staff  of  policemen,  and  judges,  and  a  whole 
assortment  of  prisons  for  dealing  with  those  who 
are  demoralized  by  their  wares.  But,  on  the  other 
side  of  it,  a  licensed  trade  is  a  trade  already  re- 
stricted; it  is  a  trade  prohibited  to  all  who  are 
not  licensed.  It  is,  therefore,  prohibition  so  far 
forth ;  and  so  in  every  license  law  the  principle  is 
involved  that  the  State  has  the  right  to  prohibit 
that  which  it  licenses  only  a  certain  number  to  do. 
Thus  the  principle  of  prohibition  is  already  recog- 
nized. Ought  we,  therefore,  to  have  total  prohibi- 
tion immediately  ?  To  that  I  answer,  Let  us  have 
it  just  so  far  and  so  soon  as  the  public  sentiment 
will  sustain  its  enforcement.  We  must  not  forget 
that  a  State  enactment  in  and  of  itself  will  not 
secure  obedience  in  this  case  any  more  than  it  could 
secure  in  the  case  of  Xerxes  that  every  man  should 
bear  rule  in  his  own  house.  Any  law  is  dead  until 
the  breath  of  public  opinion  is  breathed  into  it, 
and  then  it  lives.  And  if  with  your  law  you  go  far 
ahead  of  public  opinion,  you  thereby  provoke  a  re- 
action, and  therefore  injure  rather  than  advance 
your  cause.     What  we  have  to  do,  therefore,  in  the 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  13I 

matter  of  legislation  of  a  prohibitory  character,  is, 
when  public  opinion  has  forced  the  wheel  round  to 
a  certain  point,  to  put  on  the  ratchet  of  a  law  and 
hold  it  there,  with  no  backward  movement  possible, 
until  we  are  ready  for  another  advance,  and  thus, 
step  by  step,  we  shall  get  on  towards  the  goal  that 
so  many  desire  to  reach.  Meanwhile  every  man 
can  pass  a  prohibitory  law  on  himself,  and  enforce 
that  if  he  will — and  that  will  prove  his  own  sincer- 
ity in  the  matter. 

Finally,  we  are  reminded  here  of  the  great  change 
which  the  gospel  has  wrought  on  the  position  of 
woman.  The  separation  of  the  sexes  in  this  feast, 
and  the  insult  shown  to  Vashti,  are  only  typical  of 
the  treatment  to  which  woman  has  been  subjected  in 
all  heathen  lands.  Wherever  the  gospel  has  not  gone, 
woman  has  been  degraded  into  a  slave  and  ground 
down  beneath  the  galling  tyranny  of  her  husband. 
The  barbarian  of  the  East  and  the  savage  of  the 
West  have  been  alike  in  this,  that  they  have  driven 
the  weakest  to  the  wall,  and  she  who  was  designed 
to  be  a  helpmeet  and  companion  to  her  husband — 
doubling  his  joys,  dividing  his  sorrows,  and  throw- 
ing a  halo  for  him  round  his  home — has  been  tram- 
pled under  the  hoof  of  cruelty  and  branded  with 
the  scars  of  violence.  We  are  far  enough  yet  from 
what  we  ought  to  be  in  this  respect  even  in  our 
own  Christian  land,  but  there  is  even  among  us  an 
immense  improvement  over  the  state  of  things  in 
Ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  as  well  as  over  the  con- 


132  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

dition  of  matters  at  this  day  in  Turkey  and  Hindo- 
stan ;  and  the  change  has  been  entirely  due  to  the 
Gospel  of  Christ.  Not  by  any  sudden  and  violent 
upheaval  indeed  was  it  effected.  Had  it  been  so, 
the  civilized  world  would  have  been  more  conscious 
of  its  obligation  to  the  Lord  Jesus  for  it.  But  silent- 
ly, gently,  almost  imperceptibly,  the  influence  of 
Christianity  filtered  into  the  family,  and  there,  touch- 
ing the  main-spring  of  our  human  life,  it  has  purified 
and  ennobled  society  at  large.  "  What  women  these 
Christians  have,"  said  a  Pagan  orator,  who  had  been 
a  teacher  of  Chrysostom,  with  a  true  perception  of 
the  influence  of  the  gospel  on  them,  for  the  religion 
of  Jesus  gave  dignity  to  womanhood,  holiness  to 
motherhood,  and  happiness  to  the  home.  And,  as 
an  eloquent  friend  has  said,  "  It  is  a  fact  significant 
for  the  past,  prophetic  for  the  future,  that  even  as 
Dante  measured  his  successive  ascents  in  Paradise, 
not  by  immediate  consciousness  of  movement,  but 
by  seeing  an  ever  lovelier  beauty  in  the  face  of 
Beatrice,  so  the  race  now  counts  the  gradual  steps 
of  its  spiritual  progress  out  of  the  ancient  heavy 
gloom  towards  the  glory  of  the  Christian  millennium, 
not  by  mechanisms  nor  cities,  but  by  the  ever  new 
grace  and  force  exhibited  by  the  woman,  who  was 
for  ages  either  the  decorated  toy  of  man  or  his  de- 
spised and  abject  drudge."*     My  sisters,  have  you 

*  The  Divine  Origin  of  Christianity ,  by  R.  S.  Storrs,  D.D., 
p.  156. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  1 33 

not  in  this  a  new  reason  why  you  should  value  the 
gospel  and  be  loyal  to  its  Lord  ?  And  you,  my 
brothers,  who  have  so  largely  profited  by  this  social 
regeneration,  will  you  not  hold  with  a  firmer  hand, 
because  of  all  this,  the  truth,  which  the  anarchists 
of  these  days  are  seeking  to  wrench  out  of  your 
grasp  ? 


III. 

THE  ORPHAN  MAIDEN. 
Esther  II. 

When  in  their  progress  westward  the  kings  of 
Assyria  or  Babylon  had  subdued  any  important 
city  or  territory,  they  adopted  the  plan  of  carrying 
its  inhabitants  to  some  of  their  eastern  possessions, 
and  supplying  their  places  by  colonists  sent  from 
other  provinces.  In  this  way  certain  results  valua- 
ble to  the  conquerors,  at  least,  were  secured.  They 
filled  the  conquered  place  with  settlers  on  whose 
loyalty  they  could  rely,  and  thus  freed  themselves 
from  the  necessity  of  constantly  occupying  it  with 
a  large  armed  force ;  they  peopled  the  great  cities 
which  they  were  building  in  the  East  with  inhabit- 
ants, and  by  removing  the  captives  from  their  homes 
and  scattering  them  over  a  wide  area,  they  broke 
up  the  sentiment  of   nationality  among  them,  so 


134  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

that  within  two  or  three  generations  they  came,  for 
the  most  part,  to  be  merged  in  the  general  popula- 
tion of  the  empire. 

While,  however,  this  method  of  deporting  a  con- 
quered community  from  their  own  land  to  another 
is  called  a  captivity,  we  should  err  if  we  were  to 
suppose  that  the  exiles  were  held  in  slavery,  prop- 
erly so  called.  They  were,  indeed,  prevented  from 
returning  to  their  own  country,  but  in  every  other 
respect  they  were  treated  like  the  other  subjects  of 
the  empire.  So  far  as  appears  in  history,  no  inter- 
ference with  their  religious  belief  or  worship  was 
attempted,  save  on  very  rare  occasions,  and  posts 
of  honor  and  emolument  were  as  open  to  them,  as 
they  were  to  others.  They  were  thus  encouraged 
to  become  identified  with  the  empire,  and  were,  as 
a  rule,  treated  in  such  a  way  as  to  bind  them  as 
firmly  as  possible  to  the  throne. 

By  such  captivities  in  the  year  740  or  741  B.C., 
and  again  in  the  year  720  B.C.,  the  ten  tribes  of  Is- 
rael were  carried  away  by  the  kings  of  Assyria,  and 
so  thoroughly  were  they  amalgamated  with  those 
among  whom  they  were  dispersed  that  all  efforts  to 
trace  out  their  subsequent  history  have  been  thus 
far  in  vain.  Rather  more  than  a  century  later  a 
similar  fate  befell  the  tribes  of  the  kingdom  of 
Judah,  who  were  carried  away  at  different  times 
by  the  rulers  of  Babylon.  Seven  such  captivities 
in  all  have  been  enumerated  by  historians,  but  of 
these  three  have  been  considered  more  important 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  135 

than  the  others.  The  first  was  in  605  B.C.,  when 
Daniel  and  his  companions  were  among  those  re- 
moved ;  the  second  in  598  or  597  B.C.,  when  Jeco- 
niah,  otherwise  called  Jehoiachin,  with  all  the  no- 
bles, military  officers,  and  skilled  artificers  were 
taken  away ;  and  the  third  in  582  B.C.,  when  Zede- 
kiah  was  led  away  blind  and  childless  to  the  me- 
tropolis of  his  conqueror,  and  Jerusalem  was  laid 
waste. 

Following  Jeremiah's  advice  that  they  should 
seek  the  peace  of  the  land  to  which  they  should  be 
carried,*  the  great  majority  of  the  captives  settled 
down  in  their  new  homes  to  business  pursuits,  and 
some  of  them  rose  to  the  highest  offices  about  the 
court  and  in  the  empire ;  so  that  when,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  edict  of  Cyrus,  Zerubbabel  set  out 
with  a  large  number  of  his  countrymen  on  their  re- 
turn to  Jerusalem,  a  great  many  more  declined  to 
accompany  him,  and  preferred  to  remain  in  the 
places  which  had  now  become  their  homes..  No 
formal  condemnation  is  anywhere  in  Scripture  pro- 
nounced upon  those  who  thus  stayed  behind ;  but 
we  may  infer  that,  as  a  rule,  but  with  striking  ex- 
ceptions, such  as  Daniel  and  Nehemiah,  they  were 
largely  indifferent  to  the  restoration  of  the  Temple 
and  worship  of  their  fathers.  They  were  neither  the 
most  patriotic  nor  the  most  spiritual  of  their  peo- 
ple ;  but  still  they  preserved  their  distinctiveness, 

*  Jeremiah  xxix.,  7. 


136  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

and  were  as  really  separate  from  those  among  whom 
they  resided  as  the  Jews  are  to-day  among  our- 
selves. 

Now  it  is  to  one  of  these,  Mordecai  by  name,  that 
we  are  introduced  in  the  narrative  which  lies  before 
us  this  evening.  His  great-grandfather  Kish,  a  Ben- 
jamite,  as  we  might  have  concluded  from  his  name, 
even  if  the  record  had  not  clearly  told  us,  had  been 
carried  away  114  or  115  years  before  the  date  of 
our  story,  along  with  Jehoiachin  the  King  of  Judah. 
This  is  itself  an  evidence  that  he  belonged  to  the 
better  portion  of  the  Jews,  for  only  those  who  might 
be  called  the  upper  classes  were  taken  to  Babylon 
at  that  time.  How  it  fared  with  him  and  his  house- 
hold we  have  now  no  means  of  knowing,  but  here 
we  come  upon  his  great-grandson,  settled  in  the 
city  of  Shushan.  What  he  did  there  before  he  ob- 
tained the  office  which  required  him  to  sit  in  the 
gate  of  the  King,  or  whether  he  at  this  time  held 
that  office,  we  cannot  tell.  But  we  infer  that  he  was 
in  comfortable  circumstances,  and  we  are  warranted 
also  in  saying  that  he  had  a  kindly  heart ;  for  we 
find  under  his  roof  an  orphan  cousin,  whom  he  had 
adopted  as  his  ward,  and  whom  he  had  supported 
and  educated  from  a  very  tender  age.  Her  father, 
Abihail,  was  the  son  of  Shimei  and  brother  of  Jair,* 
so  he  was  the  uncle  of  Mordecai ,  and  when  he  and 
his  wife  died,  leaving  their  daughter  without  any 

*  Esther  ii.,  15  ;  ix.,  29. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN,  137 

earthly  protector,  Mordecai  "  took  her  for  his  own 
daughter,"  and  "  brought  her  up."  At  the  date  of 
this  chapter  it  is  probable  that  he  was  about  forty 
years  of  age,  and  his  maiden  cousin  about  twenty. 
She  had  grown  up  into  a  beautiful  woman,  answer- 
ing alike  to  her  Hebrew  name,  Hadassah,  which 
means  Myrtle,  and  her  Persian  designation,  Esther, 
which  means  a  star.  It  is  delightful  to  come  in 
such  a  place  on  such  a  manifestation  of  kindness 
as  that  shown  by  Mordecai  to  Esther.  He  might 
have  shaken  her  off,  on  the  plea  that  he  could  do 
nothing  with  a  girl,  or  on  the  ground  that  she  had 
no  legal  claim  upon  him,  or  on  some  manufactured 
pretext ;  but  instead,  he  opened  his  heart  and  his 
home  for  her  admission,  and  we  do  not  doubt  that 
she  carried  a  blessing  with  her  to  her  guardian's 
house.  If  she  increased  his  care  she  would  also 
double  his  happiness,  and  in  his  nights  of  affliction 
or  distress  her  "  starry  "  radiance  would  cheer  him 
with  its  sparkling  lustre,  while  her  budding  beauty 
would  be  to  him  a  constant  joy. 

But,  alas !  that  very  beauty  was  to  bring  to  an 
end  the  idyllic  sweetness  of  this  pure  and  holy 
home  life.  For  now  we  must  return  to  Xerxes. 
After  the  feast  was  over  and  Vashti  had  been  dis- 
placed, and  the  monarch  began  to  realize  what  he 
had  done  when  he  had  decreed  that  "  she  should 
come  no  more  before  him,"  he  missed  his  favorite 
wife — for,  as  we  may  well  believe  from  the  spirit 
which  she  showed  when  he  insulted  her  with  his 


138  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

drunken  command,  she  had  been  more  to  him  than 
a  mere  beautiful  toy,  and  her  companionship  had 
been  both  profitable  and  delightful.  He  began  to 
feel  that  he  had  been  hasty,  and  possibly  there  were 
thoughts  of  recalling  and  reinstating  her  shaping 
themselves  in  his  mind.  But  if  she  returned  to  her 
old  place,  woe  betide  those  who  had  counselled 
Xerxes  to  put  her  away ;  for  then  their  time  would 
come,  and  their  destruction  would  be  sure  and 
swift.  So,  for  their  own  protection,  they  counselled 
the  King  to  take  steps  for  putting  another  into  her 
place ;  and  the  advice  they  gave  shows  what  sort 
of  men  they  were  and  what  sort  of  master  they 
served,  as  well  as  what  sort  of  time  they  lived  in. 
We  need  not  go  into  the  particulars ;  suffice  it  to 
say  that  they  resulted  in  the  levying  of  a  "  maiden 
tribute"  from  all  the  provinces  of  the  empire  for 
the  gratification  of  the  royal  lust,  and  that  he  might 
choose  from  among  them  a  successor  to  Vashti. 
Among  those  thus  taken  from  their  homes  to  the 
royal  seraglio  for  that  purpose  was  the  beautiful 
Esther,  Some  have  supposed  that  this  change  in 
Esther's  life  was  brought  about  by  the  diplomacy 
of  Mordecai ;  others  have  argued  that  it  was  with 
his  consent,  and  some  have  even  gone  so  far  in 
absurdity  as  to  affirm  that  Mordecai,  in  procuring 
the  admission  of  Esther  into  the  harem,  was  acting 
under  special  Divine  guidance.  But  all  these  opin- 
ions are  wide  of  the  mark.  The  real,  but  terribly 
sad  truth  was,  that  when  the  officers,  appointed  to 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  139 

gather  together  all  the  fair  young  virgins  into  Shu- 
shan  the  palace,  saw  Esther,  they  took  possession 
of  her,  without  asking  either  her  consent  or  Morde- 
cai's,  in  the  King's  name,  and  carried  her  away, 
just  as  they  would  have  done  with  any  chattel  that 
was  required  for  the  payment  of  a  tax.  The  auto- 
cratic theory  was  that  all  subjects  belonged  to  the 
King,  to  be  used  at  his  pleasure ;  and  this  was  only 
one  particular  instance  under  that  general  law.  It 
would  have  made  no  matter,  therefore,  whether  -ei- 
ther Mordecai  or  Esther  protested  or  not,  for  the 
King  was  absolute  and  his  will  was  law.  We  do 
not  know,  however,  that  they  did  protest  or  resist ; 
and  it  may  have  been  that  they  had  become  them- 
selves so  demoralized  by  the  impure  moral  atmos- 
phere of  the  place  in  which  they  lived  as  to  count 
that  an  honor  which  Scripture  teaches  us  to  regard 
as  the  foulest  dishonor;  and  it  is  when  we  come 
into  contact  with  narratives  like  this,  that  we  are 
most  fully  reminded  of  what  Christ  has  done  for 
the  defence  and  protection  of  the  female  sex.  Still, 
it  does  not  become  even  us  to  be  Pharisaic  on  this 
matter.  We  may  not  forget  the  astounding  and  hor- 
rible revelations  made  recently  in  London,  which 
caused  a  shudder  all  over  England  and  the  Chris- 
tian world ;  nor  may  we  shut  our  eyes  to  the  exist- 
ence among  ourselves  of  that  which  has  been 
emphatically  called  "  the  great  sin  of  our  great 
cities."  In  some  respects  the  state  of  things  in 
Shushan  was  better  even  than  it  is  in  our  modern 


I40  ESTHER  THE   QUEEN. 

Babylons,  for  those  who  had  been  thus  dishonored 
by  the  monarch  were  supported  all  through  their 
after-lives  by  him,  as  secondary  wives,  while,  alas ! 
the  victims  of  the  seducers  of  these  days  are  cast 
aside  after  a  time,  to  sink  down  and  down  and 
down,  until  they  become  street  waifs,  with  scarce  a 
remnant  of  womanhood  left  in  them,  and  such  that 

"  The  veriest  wretch  that  goes  shivering  by 
Will  make  a  wide  sweep  lest  they  wander  too  nigh," 

while  few  care  for  them  in  any  respect,  and  least 
of  all,  those  to  whom  first  they  owed  their  degrada- 
tion. We  talk  of  Mormonism  and  its  polygamy, 
and  we  cannot  say  anything  too  strong  against  that 
abomination  whose  rise  and  progress  is  the  shame 
of  our  nineteenth  century,  but  it  were  easier  to 
deal  with  that  if  there  was  not  this  kindred  wicked- 
ness in  our  own  city  life ;  and  I  earnestly  lift  up 
my  voice  in  warning  against  the  danger  which  all 
this  bodes  to  our  national  existence.  These  evils 
are  no  better  than  those  which  we  find  here  in 
Persia  long  ago ;  but  with  us  they  exist  in  spite  of 
Christianity  and  are  emphatically  condemned  by  it, 
while  with  them  they  were  the  legitimate  results  of 
the  religion  which  they  professed,  and  that  makes 
all  the  difference.  Let  us  therefore  bring  our 
Christianity  to  bear  in  this  direction,  for  that  alone 
will  meet  the  case.  Young  men,  I  beseech  you  to 
set  your  faces  as  a  flint  against  all  such  things, 
and  let  all  those  who  are  secretly  indulging  in  in- 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  141 

iquity  of  this  sort  remember  that  God  will  one  day 
bring  them  into  judgment  with  Him.  It  is  a  seri- 
ous thing  to  poison  the  well-head  of  family  life,  and 
the  frescos  of  Pompeii  explain  all  too  well  the 
downfall  of  the  Roman  empire.  For  your  own 
sakes,  therefore,  for  the  sake  of  the  nation,  and  for 
the  sake  of  Christ,  keep  yourselves  pure,  and  be- 
ware of  becoming  in  any  way  partaker  of  other 
men's  sins,  by  allowing  their  wealth,  or  position,  or 
respectability  in  society  to  condone  for  you  the  in- 
famy of  their  sensuality.  We  turn  with  loathing 
from  a  murderer — why  not  from  an  adulterer  ?  for 
the  one  is  as  really  a  breaker  of  the  decalogue  as 
the  other.  It  is  not  agreeable  to  have  to  say  these 
things,  but  it  is  needful  to  say  them,  and  I  dare 
not  keep  silence. 

On  Esther's  entrance  into  the  harem  she  found 
a  friend  in  Hegai,  the  keeper  of  the  maidens,  and 
as  the  result  of  this  abominable  competition  she 
was  ultimately  exalted  to  the  place  of  Vashti.  A 
great  feast  was  given  in  her  honor ;  but  probably, 
because  of  his  former  experiences,  Xerxes  was  more 
prudent  on  this  occasion,  for  we  do  not  read  of  any 
such  excesses  as  those  which  issued  in  the  idiotic 
order  which  Vashti  refused  to  obey.  But  it  is  not 
safe  for  an  Eastern  monarch  to  disgrace  one  who 
has  been  at  the  head  of  his  harem,  and  just  after 
the  account  of  his  exaltation  of  Esther,  we  read 
of  a  plot  which  was  made  by  two  of  his  chamber- 
lains against  the  life  of   Xerxes,  and  which  it  is 


142  ESTHER  THE   QUEEN. 

probable  had  been  concocted  in  the  interest  of 
Vashti.  Be  that,  however,  as  it  may,  the  existence 
of  such  a  conspiracy  was  somehow  detected  by 
Mordecai,  whom  now  for  the  first  time  we  find 
"  sitting  in  the  King's  gate  "  (an  expression  which 
simply  implies  [see  chap,  iii.,  2]  that  he  was  one  of 
the  King's  servants),  and  by  him  it  was  communi- 
cated to  Esther,  who  in  turn  told  it  to  the  monarch. 
The  matter  was  considered  of  such  importance  that 
a  special  entry  regarding  it  was  made  in  the  chron- 
icles of  the  King's  reign,  and  to  Mordecai  was  given 
therein  the  credit  of  having  been  instrumental  in 
saving  the  life  of  the  Emperor, 

It  is  a  curious  insight  which  we  thus  get  into  the 
court-life  of  an  Oriental  despot,  and  there  is  little  or 
nothing  about  it  that  is  attractive  in  our  eyes. 
Only  two  things  stand  out  in  this  chapter  to  re- 
deem it  from  unmitigated  vileness — these  are  the 
love  of  Mordecai  for  Esther,  and  the  reverence  of 
Esther  for  Mordecai.  How  touching  is  it  to  read 
these  words  (verse  11):  "And  Mordecai  walked 
every  day  before  the  court  of  the  women's  house  to 
know  how  Esther  did,  and  what  should  become  of 
her."  I  think  I  see  him  pacing  to  and  fro  in  the 
front  of  the  prison  wherein  she  was  virtually  en- 
tombed, trying  to  find  some  means  of  communica- 
tion with  her,  and  overjoyed  if  he  could  but  catch 
one  glimpse  of  her  loveliness.  "  Every  day "  he 
came  thus  to  satisfy  himself,  if  possible,  of  her  wel- 
fare, for  his  heart  was  hungry  for  tidings  of  her 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  1 43 

condition,  and  his  home  was  empty  of  its  former 
gladness.  It  is  a  beautiful  picture,  all  the  more 
affecting  because  of  the  background  of  selfishness 
and  sin  out  of  which  it  stands  here  in  such  dis- 
tinct relief.  And  we  have  the  companion  to  it  in 
verse  20:  "Esther  had  not  shev/ed  her  kindred 
nor  her  people,  as  Mordecai  had  charged  her :  for 
Esther  did  the  commandment  of  Mordecai  like  as 
when  she  was  brought  up  with  him."  It  was  a  re- 
proach then,  as  unhappily  in  some  quarters  it  still 
is,  to  belong  to  the  Jewish  nation,  and  Mordecai 
was  anxious  that  Esther  should  stand  simply  on  her 
own  merits,  and  should  not  be  handicapped  by  her 
lineage,  or  hindered  thereby  from  rising  to  the  po- 
sition which  otherwise  she  might  obtain.  Nor  was 
there  any  deceit  in  his  advice,  for,  as  Matthew  Hen- 
ry says,  "All  truths  are  not  to  be  spoken  at  all 
times,  though  an  untruth  is  not  to  be  spoken  at  any 
time."  But  with  Esther  it  was  sufficient  that  Mor- 
decai had  laid  his  commands  upon  her  to  that  ef- 
fect, "for  she  did  his  commandment,  like  as  when 
she  was  brought  up  with  him."  So  the  two  were 
almost  as  father  and  daughter,  and  Esther,  far  from 
looking  upon  her  new  position  as  one  of  emancipa- 
tion from  the  old  obligation,  continued  to  regard 
her  benefactor  with  the  deepest  reverence,  for  she 
was  sure  that  everything  which  he  recommended 
was  dictated  by  the  purest  affection  for  herself. 
These  particulars  were  equally  honorable  to  both, 
and  they  are  touches  of  nature  which,  without  any 


144  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

expository  help,  find  their  way  directly  to  the  heart 
of  every  reader  of  the  narrative. 

But  now,  before  proceeding  to  the  practical  part 
of  the  discourse,  let  us  look  for  a  few  minutes  at 
the  chronology  of  the  chapter.  The  "levy"  on 
the  young  women  of  the  empire  was  made,  as 
seems  most  natural,  shortly  after  the  putting  away 
of  Vashti.  But  in  the  sixteenth  verse  we  read  that 
"  Esther  was  taken  unto  King  Ahasuerus  into  the 
house  royal  in  the  tenth  month,  which  is  the  month 
Tebeth,  in  the  seventh  year  of  his  reign."  Now, 
the  feast  of  the  former  chapter  was  held  in  the 
third  year  of  the  monarch's  reign,  so  that  there  are 
four  years  to  be  accounted  for;  and  there  would 
be  considerable  difficulty  in  filling  up  that  gap  in  a 
satisfactory  manner  if  we  were  to  adopt  the  view 
formerly  current  that  Ahasuerus  is  another  name 
for  Artaxerxes  Longimanus,  but  if  we  identify  him 
with  Xerxes  everything  is  plain,  for  during  these 
years  he  was  absent  on  his  disastrous  expedition 
against  Greece.  In  his  fourth  year,  as  we  know 
from  other  sources,  Xerxes  went  on  to  Sardis,  and 
in  the  spring  of  that  which  followed  he  set  forward 
towards  Europe.  In  the  summer  of  that  same  year 
the  battle  of  Thermopylas  was  fought,  and  in  the 
autumn  his  fleet  was  defeated  at  Salamis.  Then, 
in  the  year  after  that,  came  the  battles  of  Plataea 
and  Mycale.  Then  he  returned  to  Sardis,  whence, 
after  a  sojourn  of  some  little  time,  he  went  to  Susa. 
Thus  the  whole  interval  is  accounted  for. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  145 

But  in  verse  19  we  come  upon  another  note  of 
time  which  is  more  perplexing,  for  the  date  of  the 
conspiracy  against  the  life  of  Xerxes  is  there  given 
thus :  "  When  the  virgins  were  gathered  together 
the  second  time."  The  reference  is  not  very  clear, 
but  it  is  probably  an  event  which  was  generally 
well  known  to  both  Jews  and  Persians  at  the  time, 
and  it  seems  to  imply  that  even  after  the  exaltation 
of  Esther  to  the  place  of  Vashti  there  was  another 
levy  made  upon  the  maidens  in  the  homes  of  the 
empire,  similar  to  that  which  swept  the  orphan 
Jewess  into  the  royal  harem.  It  is  too  horrible 
to  think  of,  but  that,  also,  is  verified  by  secular  his- 
tory, for  Herodotus  tells  us  that  Xerxes  sought  sol- 
ace for  his  terrible  defeat  in  giving  himself  up  to 
the  grossest  licentiousness.  Ah  !  cruel  lust,  would 
that  this  had  been  the  last  levy  made  by  thy  re- 
morseless tyranny  on  homes  of  happiness  and 
peace ! 

Leaving  now  these  repulsive  matters,  let  us  pause 
for  a  little  and  gather  up  some  practical  lessons 
from  the  whole  subject. 

And,  in  the  first  place,  we  have,  in  the  conduct 
of  Mordecai  tovYards  Esther,  a  beautiful  example 
of  thoughtful  kindness.  He  was  moved  by  the 
forlorn  condition  of  the  lonely  orphan  and  took 
her  to  his  home,  supplying  her  wants,  giving  her  a 
suitable  education,  and  training  her  in  habits  of 
obedience  and  piety.  No  doubt  she  was  his  cous- 
in, but  not  every  cousin  would  have  done  as  he 
7 


146  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

did.  And  therefore  we  cannot  withhold  from  him 
our  admiration.  But  how  many  Esthers  there  are 
in  the  world  for  whom  there  are  no  Mordecais! 
Orphanhood  is  a  terrible  privation,  and  there  is  no 
appeal  so  powerful  as  that  which  comes  from  a 
fatherless  and  motherless  child.  Do  we  know  any 
such  that  are  needing  help,  and  can  we  give  them 
the  help  they  need  ?  If  so,  let  the  example  of  Mor- 
decai  stimulate  us  to  do  something  for  their  sup- 
port. We  have  orphan  asylums,  indeed,  but  these 
are  not  nearly  sufficient  to  meet  the  cases  which 
exist,  and  there  is  always  room  for  individual  ef- 
fort. Besides,  such  personal  beneficence  is  far 
better  for  those  who  engage  in  it  than  a  mere 
subscription  to  an  orphanage  would  be ,  and  very 
frequently  we  come  upon  cases  where  those  who 
are  themselves  little  removed  from  the  straits  of 
poverty  have  been  instrumental  in  doing  a  large 
amount  of  good.  Not  long  ago  there  came  into 
my  hands  the  life  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  David  King, 
whose  eloquence  as  a  preacher  was  thrilling  mul- 
titudes Sabbath  after  Sabbath  in  the  Greyfriars 
Church  when  I  was  a  student  at  the  University  of 
Glasgow,  and  I  found  this  paragraph  among  the 
records  of  his  pastoral  experiences — an  instance  of 
energetic  self-reliance  that  came  under  his  notice 
which  he  used  very  graphically  to  recount  :'"A  poor 
cab-driver  had  died,  leaving  a  widow,,  elderly,  child- 
less, and  uprovided  for.  At  his  first  visit  he  found 
her  in  great  affliction  and  anxiety,  which  he  strove 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  147 

to  relieve  by  temporary  help  and  encouraging 
words.  Calling  again  soon  after  to  see  how  she 
was  getting  on  and  in  what  way  he  could  best  be 
useful  to  her,  he  was  surprised,  on  reaching  the 
door  of  her  attic,  to  be  met  by  a  fragrant  odor  of 
cookery,  and  to  be  received  by  her  with  a  bright 
smile  as  she  stirred  a  steaming  pot  upon  the  fire. 
'  I'm  just  making  dinner  for  my  lads,'  she  said,  and 
he  had  scarcely  time  to  ask  an  explanation  before 
a  sound  was  heard  of  hurrying  feet  and  merry 
voices  on  the  common  stair,  and  in  rushed  a  troop 
of  boys,  barefoot  some  of  them,  and  rather  ragged, 
but  all  perfectly  clean,  with  happy  faces,  and  sure 
of  a  welcome.  He  watched  with  interest  and  won- 
der while  they  despatched  their  savory  meal  and 
hastened  off  to  their  work  again.  When  they  were 
gone  he  inquired  the  meaning  of  it  all.  '  Weel,  sir, 
she  said,  'after  you  were  here  I  was  gaun  aboot 
thinkin'  what  I  could  do,  an'  I  saw  a  puir  laddie 
stannin'  at  the  corner  of  the  street ;  an',  -thinks  I, 
he  wants  a  mither  an'  I  want  a  son ;  what  for 
shouldna  we  come  thegither  ?  An'  there's  mony 
mair  in  the  same  case;  why  shouldna  I  be  a  mither 
to  as  mony  o'  them  as  my  bit  rooms  '11  haud  ?'  She 
carried  out  her  idea,  gathering  in  from  the  street 
some  half-dozen  homeless  boys,  making  it  a  condi- 
tion that  they  should  work  and  bring  all  their  earn- 
ings to  her  to  use  for  the  common  weal.  With 
clean  faces,  and  with  tattered  garments  mended, 
she   took  them  one  by  one  the  round  of  her  ac- 


148  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

quaintance  in  search  of  honest  employment,  which 
she  was  very  fortunate  in  obtaining.  Her  plan  was 
to  keep  a  strict  account  of  the  money  they  brought 
in,  and  at  the  end  of  the  week,  if  any  surplus  re- 
mained after  all  the  expenses  of  her  thrifty  house- 
keeping had  been  defrayed,  to  allot  it  to  the  differ- 
ent boys,  in  proportion  to  their  earnings,  and  lay  it 
by  for  their  future  benefit — thus  wisely  encouraging 
them  in  habits  of  industry  and  forethought.  So 
these  poor  waifs  found  a  happy  home,  and  the  for- 
lorn widow  a  career  of  blessed  usefulness."* 

That  is  a  wonderful  illustration  of  what  can  be 
done  even  by  the  poorest,  and  I  bring  it  out  in  this 
connection  that  we  may  all  be  stimulated  by  it  to  do 
our  utmost  in  the  service  of  our  generation  by  the 
will  of  God.  The  deep  poverty  of  that  destitute 
widow  abounded  to  the  riches  of  her  liberality,  and 
like  the  woman  of  Zarephath  in  sharing  her  handful 
with  others,  she  found  the  old  word  made  good, 
"  The  handful  of  meal  shall  not  waste,  neither  shall 
the  cruise  of  oil  fail."  He  who  giveth  thus  to  the 
orphaned  and  the  homeless  lendeth  to  the  Lord,  who 
makes  both  swift  and  sure  repayment  with  added 
interest  of  blessing. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  we  have  here  forced 
upon  us  the  contrast  between  the  palace  of  a  hea- 
then emperor  and  the  cottage  of  a  Christian  peas- 
ant.    What  a  hot-bed  of  intrigue,  passion,  selfish- 

*  Life  and  Senitons  of  David  King,  LL.D.,  pp.  66-68. 


ESTHER  THE   QUEEN.  149 

ness,  and  iniquity  this  Persian  court  was  !  All  the 
splendor  of  its  architecture,  and  all  the  magnifi- 
cence of  its  furniture,  cannot  hide  the  lascivious- 
ness  of  which  this  palace  was  the  scene,  and  yet 
this  was  the  best  the  world  could  afford.  Truly 
we  may  say,  "Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity  and 
vexation  of  spirit."  There  was  no  true  happiness 
in  it  all.  But  now  put  over  against  this  chapter, 
such  a  home  scene  as  that  which  the  Scottish  poet 
has  depicted  in  his  "  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,"  and 
tell  me  if  its  simple,  rustic,  cheerful  piety  does  not 
dazzle  into  dimness  the  "  mocking  shine  "  of  Shu- 
shan's  gilded  vice.  And  what  principally  and  espe- 
cially made  the  difference  between  them  ?  What 
but  that  same  "big  ha'  Bible,"  which  lies  open  on 
the  cotter's  knee  ?  Yet  it  is  this  Christian  home 
life,  with  all  its  happiness  and  all  its  holy  educa- 
tional influences,  that  is  in  danger  among  us  at  this 
day.  For  the  marriage  union  is  the  fountain  of  do- 
mestic purity,  and  few  things  are  more  sad  in  the 
condition  of  society  among  us  than  the  easy  frivo- 
lousness  with  which  that  sacred  tie  is  broken  by 
those  who  vowed  to  be  true  to  one  another  "  until 
death  should  part "  them.  But  what  is  lightly  made 
is  lightly  held,  and  if  more  thought  and  prayer  were 
given  to  the  selection  of  a  partner  for  life,  there 
would  be  less  temptation  to  divorce.  "Ah,  me  !" 
says  Tholuck,  "  if  our  youth  would  but  more  deeply 
ponder  what  it  is  to  choose  a  partner  to  be  of  one 
spirit  and  one  flesh  with  them  for  the  whole  of  their 


150  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

pilgrimage  on  earth,  their  choice  would  not  be  made 
in  the  false  glare  of  a  theatre  or  a  ball-room.  *  Till 
death  shall  you  part,'  would  ring  perpetually  in 
their  souls.  In  the  light  of  day  they  would  choose, 
and  by  the  light  of  God's  Word  theywould  try 
their  partner,  seek  the  advice  of  Christian  friends, 
and  not  join  hands  until  they  were  sure  of  the  Di- 
vine Amen."  *  These  are  the  marriages  which  God 
will  bless,  and  on  which  happy  homes  are  built,  and 
it  is  on  the  households  of  the  people  that  the  na- 
tion rests. 


IV. 

THE  FIRST  QUAKER. 
Esther  III. 

Nearly  four  years  have  passed  since  Esther  was 
taken  into  the  royal  house,  and  Mordecai  is  still 
one  of  the  confidential  servants  or  chamberlains  of 
Xerxes,  and  is  daily  to  be  seen  with  his  colleagues 
sitting  "in  the  King's  gate."  He  has  received  no 
reward  foi"  his  discovery  and  disclosure  of  the  plot 
by  which  the  life  of  the  Emperor  was  imperilled ; 
and  the  whole  matter  seems  to  have  been  forgotten 
*in  the  emergence  of  a  new  favorite,  and  his  eleva- 


Tholuck's  Hours  of  Christian  Devotion,  p. 


471. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  151 

tion  to  the  highest  office  which  a  subject  could 
hold.  This  man's  name  was  Haman,  and  he  is  de- 
scribed as  the  son  of  Hammedatha  the  Agagite. 
That  is  literally  all  we  know  about  him,  except 
what  comes  out  in  this  history,  in  which  he  plays  a 
most  conspicuous,  and  at  the  same  time  a  most  de- 
spicable, part.  The  word  "  Haman  "  is  supposed  by 
Rawlinson  to  be  the  Hebrew  for  Umanish,  the  Per- 
sian equivalent  for  the  Greek  Eumenes,  and  the 
term  Agagite  seems  to  be  connected  with  Agag; 
which  would  appear  to  have  been  a  royal  name 
among  the  Amalekites,  like  Pharaoh  among  the 
Egyptians  and  Caesar  among  the  Romans.  What 
he  had  done  to  secure  his  advancement  at  the  Per- 
sian court  is  not  mentioned ;  but  the  fact  that  the 
King  should  have  felt  it  necessary  to  issue  an  or- 
der that  all  his  servants  should  reverently  bow  be- 
fore the  new  vizier  may,  perhaps,  be  regarded  as 
an  indication  that  he  was  not  in  himself  such  a 
man  as  they  would  be  likely  to  honor  of  their  own 
accord ;  while  Haman's  own  insistence  on  having 
such  honor  paid  him,  bespeaks  the  temper  of  one 
who  had  sprung  from  comparatively  low  degree. 
The  other  servants  in  the  gate  treated  the  matter 
with  indifference,  and  obeyed  the  King's  command. 
They  reasoned,  apparently,  that  it  was  no  affair  of 
theirs  what  sort  of  person  Haman  was,  and  that  as 
they  were  the  King's  servants,  they  would  do  as  he 
commanded.  But  Mordecai  felt  otherwise.  It  was 
with  him  an  affair  of  conscience,  and  therefore,  as 


152  ESTHER  THE    QUEEN. 

Haman  came  and  went,  he  kept  himself  erect  as  a 
Quaker,  and  would  make  no  obeisance  to  the  great 
man.  His  colleagues  reasoned  with  him  on  the 
subject,  but  it  was  to  no  purpose,  and  at  length,  to 
stop  all  further  parley  in  the  case,  he  said,  "  I  am  a 
Jew,"  and  cannot  do  as  the  King  has  commanded. 
Upon  this  they  reported  the  insubordination  of 
Mordecai  to  Haman,  not  to  the  King,  you  will  ob- 
serve, whose  ordinance  had  been  broken,  but  to 
Haman,  who  straightway  went  to  his  Majesty  and 
complained,  not  of  the  conduct  of  Mordecai  to  him- 
self, but  of  the  peculiar  customs  and  laws  of  the 
Jews,  whereby,  as  he  alleged,  they  were  a  constant 
danger  to  the  state. 

But  on  what  ground  did  Mordecai  refuse  to  bow 
to  Haman  and  do  him  reverence  ?  The  only  an- 
swer which  comes  clearly  out  of  the  chapter  to  that 
question  is,  that  the  position  which  he  took  was  one 
that  was  common  to  him  with  all  his  people,  so 
that  it  was  sufficiently  accounted  for  to  others 
when  he  said,  "I  am  a  Jew."  It  was  a  matter  of 
religion  with  him.  But  that  being  admitted,  the 
question  still  arises,  what  was  there  in  such  a  com- 
mand as  this  of  Xerxes  to  offend  the  conscience  of 
a  pious  Jew  ?  Some  have  answered  that,  as  the 
Persian  monarch  was  regarded  as  an  incarnation 
of  Ahura-Mazda,  and  therefore  entitled  to  divine 
honors,  the  act  of  prostration  before  him  was  un- 
derstood to  imply  worship ;  and  so  homage  paid 
to  Haman  as  the  King's  representative  would  be  a 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  153 

virtual  giving  of  divine  honor  to  a  human  creature. 
This  is  confirmed  even  by  heathen  writers  —  for 
Herodotus  tells  us  that  certain  Greeks  on  being 
pressed  to  prostrate  themselves  before  the  King, 
when  they  were  introduced  into  his  presence  at 
Susa,  declared  "  that  it  was  not  their  custom  to 
worship  a  man,  nor  had  they  come  for  that  pur- 
pose;" and  Curtius  has  said,  "  The  Persians,  indeed, 
not  only  from  motives  of  piety  but  also  from  pru- 
dence, worship  their  kings  among  the  gods.*  Now, 
if  that  explanation  be  adopted,  the  act  of  Mordecai 
takes  its  place  beside  the  refusal  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians to  sacrifice  to  the  Roman  Emperor,  and  puts 
him  on  the  honor  roll  among  those  whose  rule  of 
life  in  all  such  cases  was, "  We  ought  to  obey  God 
rather  than  men."  But  while  it  would  fully  justify 
Mordecai,  this  explanation  is  in  itself  not  without 
difficulty.  For  did  not  Joseph's  brethren  make 
similar  obeisance  to  him  ?  Would  not  Mordecai 
after  his  own  elevation  to  Haman's  place  be  re- 
quired to  bow  before  the  King  ?  and  must  we  con- 
demn Nehemiah  for  rendering  to  Artaxerxes  the 
homage  which  Mordecai  here  refused  to  Haman, 
though  Xerxes  himself  had  commanded  that  it 
should  be  rendered  ?  It  is  possible,  of  course,  that 
Mordecai  was  right,  and  that  all  the  rest  were 
wrong ;  but  it  is  not  absolutely  incontrovertible  that 
the  reverence  here  required  was  of  the  nature  of 


*  See  Keil  on  Esther,  in  loco. 
7* 


154  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

religious  worship.  Others,  therefore,  have  sought 
for  the  reason  of  Mordecai's  disobedience  to  the 
royal  mandate  in  the  nationality  of  Haman.  Tak- 
ing Agagite  as  equivalent  to  Amalekite,  they  re- 
mind us  that  the  Amalekites  were  the  first  to  at- 
tack the  Israelites  after  their  escape  from  Egypt, 
and  that  after  his  victory  over  them  on  that  occa- 
sion Moses  said.  "  The  Lord  hath  sworn  that  the 
Lord  will  have  war  with  Amalek  from  generation 
to  generation."*  They  recall  to  our  remembrance, 
also,  the  fact  that  it  was  for  sparing  some  of  the 
Amalekites  that  Saul  was  first  rejected  by  God 
from  being  king  over  Israel,  and  that  the  only  time 
that  Samuel  wielded  a  sword  was  when  he  "  hewed 
Agag  in  pieces  before  the  Lord."  f  Now  if  Haman 
was  indeed  an  Amalekite,  it  would  be  easy  to  find 
in  that  a  reason  for  Mordecai's  conduct,  as  well  as 
for  Haman's  purpose  of  revenge;  for  these  de- 
scending feuds  between  races  in  the  East  are  both 
undying  and  envenomed,  especially  when  they  are 
rooted  in  religious  differences.  But  then  we  have 
no  other  case  in  Scripture  where  a  royal  title  like 
Agag  becomes  a  family  patronymic,  so  as  to  be 
the  name  of  a  tribe  ;  and  it  is  hard  to  account  for 
the  appearance  of  one  of  the  hated  race  of  Amalek 
here,  at  this  late  date,  in  Susa.  So  there  are  diffi- 
culties connected  with  both  solutions,  and  it  is  not 
easy  to  choose  between  them.     Perhaps  the  first, 

*  Exodus  xvii.,  14-16.  f  I.  Samuel  xv.,  15-33. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  155 

all  things  considered,  is  the  more  satisfactory;  and 
without  insisting  that  it  is  absolutely  correct,  we 
shall  speak  throughout  as  if  it  were  the  true  hy- 
pothesis. 

It  is  a  little  remarkable,  as  we  have  already  noted, 
that  his  fellow-servants  should  have  told  Haman  of 
Mordecai's  conduct  rather  than  informed  the  King, 
for  it  was  a  royal  ordinance  that  he  disregarded ; 
but  their  action  may  be  explained  either  by  their 
knowledge  that  Mordecai  was  in  all  other  respects 
distinguished  for  his  loyalty  to  Xerxes,  or  by  their 
desire  to  ingratiate  themselves  with  the  new  favorite. 
Not  less  noteworthy  is  it  that  when  Haman  made 
his  representation  to  the  King,  he  said  not  a  word 
about  the  personal  slight  which  had  so  stung  him 
into  revenge ,  but  pretended  to  be  acting  solely 
on  public  grounds,  and  with  a  view  to  the  safety  and 
welfare  of  the  empire.  The  act  of  Mordecai  was 
rooted  in  his  nationality  as  a  Jew,  and  therefore 
Haman  "  thought  scorn  "  to  take  vengeance  on  him 
alone,  inasmuch  as  the  next  Jew  he  met  might 
repeat  the  indignity.  So  nothing  would  serve  him. 
but  that  the  race  should  be  exterminated,  and  to 
secure  that  end  he  made  the  following  representa- 
tion to  the  Emperor.  "There  is  a  certain  people 
scattered  abroad  and  dispersed  among  the  people 
in  all  the  provinces  of  thy  kingdom  ,  and  their  laws 
are  diverse  from  all  people ;  neither  keep  they  the 
King's  laws :  therefore,  it  is  not  for  the  King's  profit 
to  suffer  them."     Now  in  all  this  we  have  a  most 


IS6  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

ingenious  insinuation  of  falsehood  under  color  of 
that  which  was  mainly  true.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that  the  Jews  were  a  peculiar  people,  with  laws  that 
were  diverse  from  those  of  other  nations ;  but  it 
was  not  the  case  that,  as  a  general  thing,  they  did 
not  keep  the  King's  laws.  For  the  things  in  which 
their  laws  were  divergent  from  those  of  others  were 
religious,  and  of  such  a  sort  as  did  not  interfere 
with  their  civil  allegiance ;  so  that  they  were  even 
distinguished  above  others  for  living  quiet  and 
peaceable  lives ;  they  paid  their  tribute  without 
giving  any  trouble ;  they  complied  with  all  the  de- 
mands that  were  made  upon  them,  except  when 
these  interfered  with  the  injunctions  of  their  God, 
and  it  was  an  atrocious  libel  on  their  character  to 
affirm  that  they  were  on  that  account  disloyal  to 
the  King  or  dangerous  to  the  State.  They  were 
very  particular,  indeed,  to  "  render  unto  God  the 
things  that  were  God's;"  but  they  were  also  just  as 
punctilious  in  "rendering  to  Caesar  the  things  that 
were  Caesar's ;"  and  when  the  two  came  into  col- 
lision, the  difficulty  arose  not  from  their  refusal  to 
obey  the  King  in  all  proper  matters,  but  from  the 
King's  invasion  of  the  domain  of  conscience,  of 
which  God  alone  is  the  Lord.  One  instance  of  the 
latter  sort  had  galled  Haman,  and  from  that  sin- 
gle case  he  drew  the  sweeping,  unwarranted,  and 
universal  inference  that  they  did  not "  keep  the 
King's  laws."  The  same  declaration  had  been 
made  regarding  the  three   Hebrew  youths  in  the 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN,  157 

time  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  regarding  Daniel  in 
the  days  of  Darius,  and  the  world  has  become  fa- 
miliar with  it  in  the  Christian  centuries.  It  was 
the  pretext  for  the  persecution  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians; it  was  the  excuse  given  by  Alva  for  his 
enormities  in  the  Low  Countries ;  by  the  kings  of 
France  in  the  dragonnades,  and  the  massacre  of  St, 
Bartholemew ,  and  by  the  Stuarts  for  their  oppres- 
sion of  the  English  Puritans  and  the  Scottish  Cove- 
nanters, and  in  all  of  these  it  was  equally  false. 
It  was  not  the  persecuted  that  were  in  these  in- 
stances guilty  of  high  treason,  but  the  persecutors, 
and  their  disloyalty  was  to  the  royalty  of  conscience. 
They  invaded  a  territory  that  is  claimed  as  sacred 
by  the  God  of  heaven,  and  resistance  to  them  there 
has  done  more  for  the  cause  of  civil  freedom  than 
all  other  things  in  the  world  besides. 

But  Haman,  though  he  knew  that  he  was  lying 
when  he  made  the  unqualified  statement  as  to  the 
Jews,  that  they  did  not  keep  the  King's  laws,  knew 
also  that  he  was  safe — for  the  time,  at  least — in 
making  such  an  affirmation,  for  there  was  nobody 
in  the  presence  to  contradict  him;  and  the  King 
himself  seems  to  have  known  nothing  whatever 
about  the  Jews,  and  to  have  cared  less  than  noth- 
ing what  was  done  with  them.  But  Haman  was 
determined  not  to  fail,  and  so,  when  suggesting 
that  they  should  be  destroyed,  he  took  the  precau- 
tion of  offering  the  King  a  large  sum  of  money, 
amounting  probably  to   between  ten   and   twenty 


IS8  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

millions  of  our  dollars,  that  nothing  should  be  lost 
to  the  royal  treasury  by  their  extermination.  This 
was  all  that  was  required,  and  so,  with  an  appear- 
ance of  impatience,  as  if  the  whole  matter — though 
it  involved  the  lives  of  many  thousands  of  his 
subjects  —  was  a  "bore"  to  him,  he  virtually  said, 
taking  his  ring  from  his  hand  the  while,  "  There — 
do  what  you  like  with  the  people  and  their  money 
too,  and  don't  trouble  me  any  more  about  them." 

So  far,  Haman's  plan  seemed  to  succeed  admi- 
rably. But  now  how  was  he  to  manage  the  details 
that  had  been  thus  unceremoniously  left  in  his  own 
hands  ?  Like  most  men  of  cruel  and  vindictive 
dispositions,  he  was  very  superstitious.  It  was 
therefore  very  important,  in  his  estimation,  that  he 
should  fix  a  "lucky"  day  for  the  execution  of  his 
purpose.  And  to  get  a  lucky  day  he  cast  J^ur,  or 
Puritn* — that  is,  he  cast  lots..    He  tried  first  for 

*  Concerning  this,  M.  Dieulafoy,  in  the  lecture  already  re- 
ferred to,  makes  the  following  interesting  statements:  "  This 
sentence  (Esther  iii.,  [7)  presents  no  difficulty  if  one  keeps  to 
the  literal  meaning.  It  concerns  a  means  of  augury  called  in 
the  Persian  tongue  Pur,  which  was  thrown  before  any  one 
desirous  of  taking  the  advice  of  fate.  The  Pur  undoubtedly 
expressed  its  oracles  by  'yes'  or  'no.'  Like  the  Egyptian 
gods,  it  must  reply  to  very  decided  questions,  asked  in  some 
kind  of  double  manner.  '  Shall  the  Jews  be  massacred  on 
the  first  day  of  the  month  ?'  We  know  that,  consulted  day 
by  day,  month  by  month,  the  Pur  gave  a  negative  answer ; 
then,  when  the  thirteenth  day  and  the  twelfth  month  was 
called,  it  answered,  '  yes ;'  that  is,  kill.     Among  the  objects 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN,  1 59 

the  day  of  the  month,  and  it  came  out  for  the  thir- 
teenth ;  then  he  tried  similarly  for  the  month  of 
the  year,  and  it  came  out  for  the  twelfth.  So  the 
massacre  was  fixed  for  the  thirteenth  day  of  the 
twelfth  month.  "  Truly  the  lot  is  cast  into  the  lap, 
but  the  whole  disposing  of  it  is  with  the  Lord,"  for 
even  the  dullest  reader  of  the  history  must  see  that 
if  the  lot  had  fallen  in  one  of  the  earlier  months, 
there  would  have  been  less  time  given  to  the  Jews 
to  prepare  for  the  emergency,  and  little  opportu- 
nity for  Mordecai's  taking  measures  for  the  coun- 
teracting of  the  nefarious  design  of  him  who  is  here 
called,  so  emphatically,  "  the  Jews'  enemy."  Thus, 
as  Henry  says,  "The  lot  broke  the  neck  of  the 
plot." 

Acting  on  the  indication  given  by  the  lot  as  to 
the  lucky  day  of  the  month,  Haman  wrote  his  proc- 
lamation on  the  thirteenth  day  of  the  first  month. 
It  was  written  in  all  the  languages  — more  than 
twenty  in  number — of  the  empire,  and  sealed  with 
the  King's  ring,  so  that  all  might  know  that  the 

found  iii  the  deep  excavation  of  the  Memnonium  {i.e.,  the 
palace  at  Susa)  is  a  quadrangular  prism,  each  side  measuring 
a  centimetre,  and  the  length  four  and  a  half  centimetres.  On 
the  rectangular  faces  are  engraved  difl^rent  numbers — one, 
two,  five,  six.  Throw  the  prism,  and  it  must  stand  on  an 
even  or  an  uneven  number.  The  Persians  love  games  of 
chance  as  much  as  wine.  May  not  the  little  Susian  relic  be 
one  of  their  dice?  And  may  not  their  dice,  under  the  name 
of  Pztr,  have  been  used  to  consult  the  fates  and  try  fortunes?" 
— BibliotJuca  Sacra  for  October,  18S9,  p.  629. 


l6o  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

name  of  Xerxes  had  not  been  unwarrantably  em- 
ployed. It  authorized  all  to  whom  it  came  "to 
destroy,  to  kill,  and  to  cause  to  perish  all  Jews, 
both  young  and  old,  little  children  and  women,  in 
one  day,  the  thirteenth  of  the  twelfth  month,  which 
is  the  month  Adar,  and  to  take  the  spoil  of  them 
for  a  prey."  These,  as  it  would  seem,  are  the  very 
terms  that  were  used ;  and  so  we  have  appended 
to  them,  in  the  next  verse,  this  certification  of  their 
accuracy,  which  in  a  modern  history  would  have 
been  given  in  a  foot-note :  "  The  copy  of  the  writing 
for  a  commandment  to  be  given  in  every  province 
was  published  unto  all  people,  that  they  should  be 
ready  against  that  day." 

But  when  it  is  said  "the  posts  went  out,  being 
hastened  by  the  King's  commandment,"  we  are  not 
to  suppose,  of  course,  that  there  was  in  Persia  at 
that  time  any  such  expeditious  postal  service  as 
that  which  we  now  enjoy ;  and  yet,  for  that  age,  it 
was  exceedingly  good,  but  only  the  King  could  take 
advantage  of  it.  Indeed,  it  was  one  of  the  means 
used  by  him  for  the  government  of  the  empire,  and 
was  very  largely,  according  to  Herodotus,  the  de- 
vice of  this  same  Xerxes.  Along  the  chief  lines  of 
travel  he  established,  at  intervals  of  about  fourteen 
miles,  post-houses,  at  each  of  which  relays  of  horses 
and  couriers  were  always  in  readiness.  One  of  these 
messengers,  receiving  an  official  document,  rode 
with  it  at  his  utmost  speed  to  the  next  post-house, 
where  it  was  taken  onward  by  another  courier  with 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  l6l 

another  horse,  and  in  this  way  a  proclamation  like 
that  here  described  would  reach  the  farthest  limits 
of  the  empire  within  six  or  eight  weeks.  Thus  the 
letters  were  issued  ;  and  Haman  was  delighted,  and 
the  King  was  glad  to  see  his  courtier  pleased,  so 
that  they  sat  down  together  in  the  palace  to  drink ; 
but,  with  a  suggestive  contrast,  the  historian  adds, 
"  the  city  Shushan  was  perplexed." 

It  is  time  now,  however,  to  look  for  some  practi- 
cal lessons  from  this  history  of  pride  and  plotting 
and  revenge.  We  have  in  the  case  of  Mordecai  an 
example  of  fidelity  to  principle  which  is  worthy  of 
all  study  and  imitation.  As  I  have  read  his  con- 
duct, he  was  convinced  that  it  was  wrong  for  him 
to  do  homage  to  Haman,  and  therefore  he  would 
not  do  it  under  any  pretence  whatsoever.  It  was  a 
small  matter,  in  itself  considered,  that  he  was  asked 
to  do,  but  in  this  case  that  small  matter  was  of  such 
a  nature  that  jt  marked  the  distinction  between  po- 
liteness and  idolatry,  and  therefore  he  refused  to 
do  it.  The  difference  between  right  and  wrong  may 
be  shown  in  a  little  matter,  but  it  is  not  therefore  a 
little  difference ;  and  they  who  are  determined  to 
be  thorough  in  their  allegiance  to  God  will  make 
no  distinction  in  their  conduct  between  small  things 
and  great.  Very  noble,  too,  was  Mordecai's  firm- 
ness in  resisting~the  entreaties  of  his  fellow-serv- 
ants, for  he  shut  up  the  whole  controversy  with  the 
simple  confession,  "  I  am  a  Jew."  He  advised  Es- 
ther not  to  make  known  her  kindred  when  there 


1 62  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN, 

was  no  occasion  for  her  so  doing ;  but  now  when 
the  question  comes  to  be,  as  he  regards  it,  between 
committing  sin  and  preserving  his  loyalty  to  God  as 
one  of  the  peculiar  people,  he  has  no  hesitation  in 
declaring  his  own.  He  will  not  needlessly  publish 
his  religion  on  the  house-top,  but  neither  will  he  be 
ashamed  of  it  in  the  "King's  gate."  It  might  cost 
him  much  to  make  the  confession,  but  he  knew  that 
sin  would  be  still  more  costly,  and  so  he  did  not 
shrink  from  saying,  "I  am  a  Jew."  He  had  the 
courage  of  his  convictions ;  and  though  he  despised 
Haman,  he  was  determined  never  so  to  act  as  that 
he  should  despise  himself.  Now,  herein  he  gave 
an  example  which  Christians  might  follow  with  ad- 
vantage. Have  the  courage,  young  men,  when  you 
are  asked  to  do  what  you  know  to  be  wrong,  to  re- 
ply simply,  yet  sublimely,  thus :  "  I  am  a  Christian ;" 
and  when  men  see  you  are  steadfastly-minded,  they 
will  leave  off  speaking  to  you.  Add  to  your  faith 
courage.  By  that  I  mean  not  mere  physical  brave- 
ry, but  the  far  rarer  quality  of  moral  courage — the 
heroism,  not  of  the  warrior,  but  of  the  man  who  has 
learned  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  ridicule  and  scorn, 
and  to  follow  the  dictates  of  duty,  "  uncaring  con- 
sequences." Nothing  great  or  good  in  the  world 
has  ever  been  accomplished  without  that.  Men 
may  call  you  stiff- backed,  Quaker,  Puritan,  Meth- 
odist, and  the  like,  but  even  these  very  names  may 
remind  you  that  the  mightiest  power  among  men, 
next  only  to  that  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  is  the  power 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN,  163 

of  conscience ;  and  that  the  grandest  pioneers  even 
of  civil  freedom  have  been  those  who  insisted  upon 
their  right  "  to  keep  a  conscience  void  of  offence 
towards  God  and  towards  men."  Hence,  young 
men — for  it  is  to  you  especially  I  here  address  my- 
self— if  you  would  worthily  serve  not  merely  this 
generation,  but  also  those  which  shall  come  after 
you,  you  must  learn  to  meet  temptation  with  a  di- 
rect negative,  and  master  the  difficult  art  of  saying 
"  No."  Never  mind  though  you  may  seem  to  stand 
alone  ;  he  who  has  God  on  his  side  is  always  really 
in  a  majority ;  and  he  who  can  say,  the  Father  is 
wdth  me,  is  never  alone.  Stand  fast  in  your  integ- 
rity, and  let  life  go  sooner  than  your  principles.  If 
the  world  would  have  you  do  reverence  to  that 
which  you  believe  to  be  detestable,  let  the  world 
go  ;  if  the  world  would  have  you  applaud  when  it 
is  crucifying  Christ  afresh,  be  not  ashamed  of  your 
nonconformity,  but  declare  modestly,  firmly,  yet 
clearly  and  unmistakably,  that  you  are  a  Christian, 
and  that  your  homage  goes  to  the  Crucified,  and 
not  to  them  who  are  responsible  for  the  crucifixion. 
Above  all — and  here  I  quote  the  words  of  the  great- 
est wit  of  his  age — "  Learn  to  inure  your  principles 
against  ridicule.  You  can  no  more  exercise  your 
reason  if  you  live  in  the  constant  dread  of  laughter 
than  you  can  enjoy  your  life  if  you  are  in  the  con- 
stant terror  of  death.  If  you  thinL  it  right  to  differ 
from  the  times,  and  to  make  a  point  of  morals,  do  it, 
however  rustic,  however  antiquated,  however  pe- 


164  ESTHER  THE   QUEEN. 

dantic  it  may  appear ;  do  it,  not  from  insolence,  but 
seriously  and  grandly ;  as  a  man  who  wore  a  soul 
of  his  own  in  his  bosom,  and  did  not  wait  till  it 
was  breathed  into  him  by  the  breath  of  fashion."* 
Do  it,  let  me  add,  like  one  who  owes  his  whole  self 
to  Christ,  and  who  is  not  ashamed  to  say,  when  the 
occasion  calls  for  it,  "  I  am  a  Christian."  As  we 
shall  presently  see,  in  our  prosecution  of  this  his- 
tory, your  adherence  to  this  course  may  bring  you 
into  trouble ;  but  that  sort  of  trouble  comes  to  an 
end,  and  the  Lord  will  lead  you  out  of  it,  while  the 
trouble  that  results  from  the  opposite  course  will 
be  unending,  for  Jesus  himself  says — and  the  words 
are  all  the  more  terrible  as  coming  from  His  lips — 
"Whosoever  shall  be  ashamed  of  me,  and  of  my 
words,  of  him  also  shall  the  Son  of  man  be  ashamed, 
when  he  cometh  in  the  glory  of  his  Father  with  the 
holy  angels."  f 

But  in  the  conduct  of  Haman  we  have  a  beacon 
of  warning,  which  may  be  just  as  profitable  to  us  as 
the  example  of  Mordecai.  The  root  of  the  evil  in 
him  was  pride.  Like  most  men  who  have  risen 
from  obscurity  into  an  exalted  position,  not  by  their 
own  ability  but  by,  the  gift  of  another,  he  valued 
his  elevation  not  for  the  good  he  could  do  to  oth- 
ers through  it,  but  for  the  increased  consideration 
which  it  brought  to  himself.  It  was  more  to  him 
to  see  these  chamberlains  bowing  in  the  King's 

*  Sydney  Smith.  f  Mark  viii.  38. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  1 65 

gate  than  it  was  to  have  it  in  his  power  to  help  on 
good  and  great  movements  for  the  Avelfare  of  his 
fellow-men.  He  was  one  of  those  who  valued  office 
for  what  it  brought  to  him  rather  than  for  the  serv- 
ice which  he  might  render  through  it  alike  to  the 
King  and  to  his  subjects ;  and  therefore  when  he 
was  told  of  Mordecai's  Quakerism  he  was  exceed- 
ing wroth,  A  man  of  principle  would  have  respect- 
ed the  conscientiousness  of  the  act,  even  though 
he  might  have  laughed  at  what  he  regarded  the 
smallness  of  the  scruple,  A  man  of  ordinary  com- 
mon-sense would  have  treated  the  whole  affair  with 
indifference ;  but  Haman  valued  his  office  just  be- 
cause it  carried  with  it  the  right  to  such  homage, 
and  therefore  what  would  have  been  a  mole-hill,  or 
hardly  so  much,  to  others,  was  a  mountain  to  him. 
The  proud  man  thus  increases  his  own  misery; 
and  little  slights,  which  other  people  would  not  so 
much  as  notice,  are  felt  by  him  with  great  keen- 
ness. He  whose  arm  has  been  recently  vaccinated 
is  very  sensitive  where  the  pustule  is,  so  that  a 
push  which  you  would  think  nothing  of  is  agony 
to  him.  Now,  in  precisely  the  same  way  the  proud 
man  is  "touchy,"  as  we  say;  the  slightest  infringe- 
ment on  his  dignity  wounds  him  to  the  quick,  and 
when  other  people  are  laughing  he  is  vowing  re- 
venge; for,  as  this  story  illustrates,  the  passions 
are  all  near  of  kin,  and  one  prepares  the  way  for 
another. 

Broodins  over  the  refusal  of  Mordecai  to  do  him 


l66  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

reverence,  it  became  so  magnified  in  his  estimation 
that  he  determined  to  punish  it ;  there  was  revenge. 
That  he  might  gratify  that  revenge  it  became  neces- 
sary to  bring  the  peculiarities  of  the  Jewish  nation 
before  the  King,  and  he  requested  their  destruction 
on  the  ground  that  they  were  not  profitable  to  the 
monarch,  whereas  the  sole  reason  why  he  suggested 
their  extirpation  was  that  Mordecai  had  slighted 
him  ;  there  was  falsehood.  Then,  in  planning  their 
massacre,  there  was  murder.  Here,  therefore,  were 
four  sins  all  in  a  line,  each  rising  above  the  other  in 
enormity — pride,  revenge,  falsehood,  murder.  Peo- 
ple think,  sometimes,  that  pride  is  no  great  sin ;  some 
almost  speak  of  it  as  if  it  were  half  a  virtue  ;  but,  as 
this  and  other  histories  make  plain,  it  is  the  germ  of 
other  evils  that  are  worse  than  itself,  and  therefore 
we  ought  to  be  on  our  guard  against  allowing  our- 
selves to  become  its  victim. 

And  how  shall  we  best  counteract  it  ?  I  reply,  by 
cultivating  a  sense  of  responsibility.  That  which  we 
have,  whether  it  be  ability,  or  wealth,  or  exalted  po- 
sition, we  have  received  as  a  trust,  and  we  are  to  use 
it,  as  stewards  for  God,  in  the  service  of  our  fellow- 
men.  Let  us  keep  pressing  the  questions.  Who  hath 
made  me  to  differ  from  others  ?  What  have  I  that  I 
have  not  received  ?  For  what  purpose  have  I  been 
intrusted  with  these  things  ?  And  the  more  we  pon- 
der these,  the  less  we  shall  be  inclined  tf>-.plume  our- 
selves on  our  possessions,  and  the  more  we  shall  be 
stirred  up  to  the  service  of  our  generation  by  the  will 


ESTHER    THE    QUEEN.  167 

of  God.  The  cultivation  of  a  sense  of  responsibility 
to  God  for  our  possessions,  and  the  manifestation 
of  stewardship  to  Him  in  the  use  of  our  means  as 
His  servants  for  the  welfare  of  our  fellow-men,  are 
the  great  needs  of  our  times.  So  far  as  I  can  see, 
they  are  the  only  things  that  will  preserve  us  from 
the  anarchy  and  revolution  that  Communism,  and 
Nihilism  threaten  to  bring  always  in  their  train. 
As  it  is,  the  great  ones  of  our  time  are  a  little  too 
much  like  Xerxes  and  Haman  here,  who  sat  down 
to  eat  and  to  drink  in  the  palace,  heedless  of  the 
lives  that  they  had  just  devoted  to  destruction,  and 
altogether  unconscious  of  the  perplexity  that  was 
grumbling  like  the  first  sounds  of  a  volcanic  erup- 
tion in  the  city  and  among  the  people.  Unless  all 
signs  deceive  me,  there  is  coming  upon  us  a  con- 
flict between  property  and  Communism  which  will 
have  to  be  settled  somehow,  and  which  will  never 
be  settled  permanently  until  it  is  settled  right.  It 
is,  therefore,  suicidal  folly  for  those  who  are  wealthy 
to  sit  in  luxurious  self-indulgence  in  their  palaces 
while  so  many  are  perplexed.  If  they  would  act 
wisely,  they  would  take  measures  to  prevent  that 
conflict ;  and  the  scriptural  means  for  securing  that 
are  the  cultivation  of  this  sense  of  responsibility 
for  ownership,  and  the  acting  out  of  that  in  stew- 
ardship for  God,  so  that  they  should  say,  "  We  are 
debtors"  to  our  fellow-men,  and  will  hold  our 
means  in  trust  under  God  for  them.  The  Com- 
munist says,  "Property  is  theft;"  but  the  Christian 


l68  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

replies,  "  My  property  is  God's."  The  Communist 
says,  "  What  is  yours  is  mine,  and  I  will  take  it  by 
force ;"  but  the  Christian  replies,  "  Nay,  what  is 
mine  is  God's,  and  I  will  use  it  as  His  for  the  wel- 
fare of  my  fellow-men  and  as  accountable  to  Him." 
Thus,  and  thus  alone,  the  capitalist  will  checkmate 
the  Communist ;  and  I  would  that  I  had  the  voice 
of  a  trumpet  to  cry  to  all  of  them  over  all  the  land, 
"  Be  stewards  for  God,  and  use  your  wealth  for  the 
benefit  of  your  generation  by  the  v/ill  of  God.  But 
if  you  are  thoroughly  indifferent,  beware  lest  the 
perplexity  of  Shushan  rise  into  the  roar  of  an  an- 
archy which  will  sweep  everything  before  it  in  its 
reign  of  terror."  Pride  will  bring  destruction ;  but 
the  sense  of  such  a  responsibility  as  I  have  speci- 
fied, stimulating  to  action,  is  the  true  conservative 
principle,  and  the  only  thing  that  will  meet  the  case. 
God  help  us  all  to  lay  these  things  to  heart ! 


V. 

THE    CRISIS. 

Esther  IV.    1-17. 

Evil  tidings  travel  by  express,  and  wherever  they 
go  they  produce  sorrow  of  heart.  The  publication 
of  the  decree  issued  by  Haman  in  the  name  of 
Xerxes  was  followed  by  an  outburst  of  grief,  which, 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  169 

beginning  at  Shushan,  spread  out  and  out  in  the 
wake  of  the  couriers,  until  it  was  heard  in  the  re- 
motest province  of  the  empire.  Naturally,  how- 
ever, this  anguish  was  more  keenly  felt  by  Mordecai 
than  by  any  other  individual  among  the  Jews.  For 
he  knew  *  the  history  of  the  plot.  He  could  not 
hide  it  from  himself  that  he  had  been  the  occa- 
sion of  provoking  Haman's  diabolical  revenge ;  and 
though  he  did  not  and  could  not  upbraid  himself 
for  having  done  wrong  in  refusing  to  give  homage 
to  the  new  vizier,  yet  he  could  not  but  be  peculiarly 
afifected  by  this  result  of  his  adherence  to  principle. 
At  first  it  would  appear  that  he  was  so  stunned,  and 
almost  stupefied,  by  the  news,  that  he  knew  not  what 
to  do.  He  was  cast  into  the  uttermost  distress. 
He  was  like  a  vessel  struck  by  a  cyclone.  He 
would  get  to  the  use  of  efforts  to  meet  the  crisis  by- 
and-by ;  but,  for  the  moment,  when  the  hurricane 
first  burst  upon  him,  he  could  do  nothing  but  give 
way  to  the  violence  of  the  storm.  So  he  rent  his 
clothes  and  put  on  sackcloth  and  ashes ;  and,  as  no 
one  might  appear  in  such  a  garb  of  misery  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  palace  lest,  forsooth,  he  should 
mar  the  happiness  of  the  monarch,  he  went  out  into 
the  midst  of  the  city,  and  cried  with  a  loud  and  bit- 
ter cry. 

This  conduct  of  his  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
eunuchs,  who  were  the  only  means  of  communica- 

*  See  verse  7  of  this  chapter. 


170  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

tion  between  the  house  in  which  Esther  dwelt  and 
the  outer  world.  They  probably  did  not  know  as 
yet  the  relationship  between  Esther  and  Mordecai, 
but  they  had  long  been  familiar  with  their  interest 
in  each  other,  and  therefore  it  was  quite  natural 
that  they  should  tell  her  of  his  grief.  When  she 
heard  their  report  she  sent  raiment  for  him  to  put 
on,  thinking,  perhaps,  that  the  matter  was  so  unim- 
portant that  she  might  remove  his  sadness  by  get- 
ting him  to  put  away  its  livery.  But  when  her  mes- 
sengers returned  and  told  her  that  he  would  not 
receive  her  gift,  she  was  led  to  conclude  that  the 
case  was  more  serious  than  she  had  at  first  sup- 
posed ;  and,  therefore,  she  called  Hatach,  her  most 
trusted  servant,  the  head  of  her  establishment,  whom 
Xerxes  had  specially  appointed  as  her  attendant, 
and  sent  him  to  get  from  Mordecai  a  full  explana- 
tion of  his  distress.  This  opened  the  way,  as  Mor- 
decai seems  to  have  thought,  to  an  escape  from  the 
danger  by  which  the  Jews  were  threatened.  There- 
fore he  told  the  whole  story  to  Hatach,  gave  him  a 
copy  of  the  decree  which  Haman  had  issued  in  the 
King's  name,  and  sent  an  urgent  message  to  Esther, 
charging  her  "  that  she  should  go  in  unto  the  King, 
to  make  supplication  to  him  and  to  make  request 
before  him  for  her  people."  From  this  it  follows 
either  that  Hatach  was  already  somewhat  acquainted 
with  Esther's  nationality,  or  that  he  was  now  in- 
formed of  it  for  the  first  time  ;  but,  in  any  case,  he 
faithfully  carried  Mordecai's  message  to  Esther,  and 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  17I 

was  sent  back  by  her  to  inform  her  kinsman  of  the 
gravity  of  the  position  in  which  she  stood.  She  re- 
minded him  of  the  law  that  none  were  permitted  to 
enter  unannounced  into  the  royal  presence  on  pain 
of  death,  unless  the  King  should  hold  out  the  golden 
sceptre  to  them  that  they  might  touch  it ;  and  she 
added  that  it  was  very  problematical  whether  he 
would  show  such  clemency  to  her,  inasmuch  as,  for 
some  reason,  she  seemed  to  have  fallen  into  disfavor, 
and  had  not  been  called  to  come  into  the  King  for 
thirty  days. 

This  answer  was  exceedingly  disappointing  to 
Mordecai.  He  imagined  that  Esther  shrank  from 
undertaking  the  duty  which  he  had  urged  her  to 
perform,  and  that  she  was  timidly  preferring  her 
own  safety  to  the  deliverance  of  her  people.  So  he 
sent  Hatach  back  with  another  message,  in  which  he 
gave  her  to  understand  that  while  her  life  was  only 
risked  by  her  going  into  the  King,  it  would  certain- 
ly be  forfeited  if  the  decree  should  be  carried  out ; 
for,  now  that  her  Jewish  birth  was  known,  she  could 
not  hope  to  escape  any  more  than  others ;  and  then, 
reminding  her  that  her  people  were  under  special 
protection  as  the  chosen  of  God,  he  pointedly  im- 
plied that  she  might  discover  in  this  opportunity 
the  reason  why  she  had  been  so  unexpectedly  ex- 
alted to  the  place  which  she  had  been  called  to  fill. 
"Think  not  with  thyself,"  said  he,  "  that  thou  shalt 
escape  in  the  King's  house  more  than  all  the  Jews. 
For  if  thou  altogether  boldest  thy  peace  at  this 


172  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

time,  then  shall  there  enlargement  and  deliverance 
arise  to  the  Jews  from  another  place ;  but  thou  and 
thy  father's  house  shall  be  destroyed :  and  who 
knoweth  whether  thou  art  come  to  the  kingdom  for 
such  a  time  as  this  ?" 

This  noble,  patriotic,  faithful,  and  believing  ap- 
peal was  not  in  vain.  It  brought  Esther  to  im- 
mediate resolution ;  and,  requesting  that  Mordecai 
and  all  the  Jews  in  Shushan  should  spend  the  inter- 
vening time  in  fasting,  while  she  and  her  maidens 
did  the  same,  she  promised  to  go  into  the  presence 
of  the  King  on  the  third  day,  no  matter  what  the 
consequence  should  be  to  herself.  "  If  I  perish," 
she  said,  not  in  bitterness,  but  in  the  resignation  of 
self-sacrifice — "  if  I  perish,  I  perish." 

It  is  remarkable  that  nothing  is  said  here  con- 
cerning prayer,  and  some  have  spoken  of  that  to 
the  discredit  of  both  Mordecai  and  Esther ;  but  the 
fasting  was  in  itself  a  prayer ;  for  it  was  not  a  form 
put  on  from  without,  but  the  natural  expression  of 
the  inner  emotion,  and,  as  an  application  to  God,  it 
is  to  be  explained  much  as  we  do  the  touching  of 
the  Saviour  by  the  woman,  who  in  that  way  sought 
her  cure.  It  was  not  so  direct  an  appeal  to  God  as 
prayer,  but  yet  it  was  a  real  appeal  to  Him,  and  that 
was  the  main  thing.  Words  are  signs,  just  as  fast- 
ing is  a  sign.  That  which  is  essential  in  either  is 
genuineness.  God  does  not  look  to  the  words  in 
themselves,  any  more  than  he  does  to  the  fasting  in 
itself.     He  has  regard  only  to  that  which  the  soul 


ESTHER  THE    QUEEN.  1 73 

expresses,  either  by  the  one  or  through  the  other. 
The  touch  of  the  soul  of  the  woman  went  to  the 
Master's  heart  through  her  touching  of  His  garment 
with  her  fingers ;  and  the  yearning  of  the  soul  of 
Esther,  through  her  fasting,  made  its  appeal  to 
Jehovah,  even  though  she  did  not  breathe  His 
name.  Nor  did  it  plead  in  vain,  for,  as  we  shall 
see  ere  long,  God  was  entreated  for  the  people,  and 
made  a  way  of  escape  for  them. 

But  now,  turning  from  the  history,  which  is  in  it- 
self so  plain  as  to  need  little  or  no  exposition,  let 
us  see  what  lessons  we  may  learn  from  it  for  our 
spiritual  profit. 

First  of  all,  let  us  remember  that  we  cannot  keep 
trouble  from  our  hearts  by  banishing  the  signs  of 
t^^  mourning  from  our  dwellings.  It  was  the  fiction  of 
the  Persians  that  their  monarch  was  a  god.  Hence 
his  decrees  were  irreversible,  and  no  emblem  of 
sorrow  was  allowed  to  approach  his  palace.  But 
all  that  was  nothing  better  than  a  solemn  farce,  for 
the  King  was  a  man,  subject  to  the  common  lot  of 
mortals.  No  porter  could  turn  back  sickness  from 
his  door,  or  prevent  the  entrance  of  care  or  disap- 
pointment or  unhappiness  into  the  chamber  of  his 
heart ;  and  at  the  appointed  time,  in  spite  of  all  the 
precautions  of  the  chamberlains  who  sat  in  his  gate, 
the  rider  on  the  pale  horse  would  pass  in  and  say  to 
him,  "  This  night  thy  soul  shall  be  required  of  thee." 
But  the  same  things  are  true  of  us.  It  is  the  height 
of  folly,  therefore,  for  us  to  try  to  surround  ourselves 


174  ESTHER    THE   QUEEN. 

with  the  appearance  of  security,  and  make  believe 
that  no  change  can  come  upon  us.  That  is  to  do 
like  the  ostrich,  which  buries  its  head  in  the  sand, 
and  thinks  itself  safe  from  its  pursuers  because  it 
can  no  longer  see  them.  Trouble,  sorrow,  trial, 
death  are  inevitable,  and  the  wise  course  is  to  pre- 
pare to  meet  them.  We  cannot  shut  Our  homes 
against  these  things;  but  we  can  open  them  to 
Christ,  and  when  He  enters  He  says,  "  My  grace  is 
sufficient  for  thee  ;  My  strength  is  made  perfect  in 
weakness."  If  we  have  the  Holy  Spirit  in  our 
hesrrts.  He  will  bear  us  up  under  every  affliction 
and  carry  us  through  every  emergency;  and  such 
support  through  trial  and  death  is  better  than  ex- 
emption from  either.  To  get  God  into  the  home  is 
wiser  by  far  than  to  seek  to  keep  sorrow  out  of  it ; 
for  the  sorrow  will  come  in  any  event,  but  sorrow 
where  God  is  never  really  harms  a  man,  for  He 
makes  it  the  precursor  of  the  highest  joy. 

Let  us  think,  again,  of  the  contrast  between  the 
earthly  King,  as  here  represented,  and  the  true 
King  of  Kings.  How  carefully  the  Persian  Em- 
peror hedged  himself  in,  not  only  from  the  subjects 
over  whom  he  ruled,  but  even  from  the  members  of 
his  household !  No  one  dared  to  venture  unan- 
nounced into  his  presence,  save  at  the  risk  of  life. 
But  how  free  our  access  is,  through  Jesus  Christ,  to 
the  throne  of  grace  and  Him  that  sitteth  thereon  ! 
"  In  Him  we  have  boldness  and  access  with  confi- 
dence by  the  faith  of  Him."    No  matter  who  we  are 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  1 75 

or  where  we  are,  we  can  get  into  the  presence  of 
God  when  we  choose.  In  the  closet,  in  the  crowded 
street,  in  the  railroad  car,  on  the  deck  of  the  ship, 
or  in  the  solitude  of  the  mountain-side— in  all  time 
of  our  tribulation,  of  whatever  sort  it  be,  we  can  get 
to  the  ear  of  the  Hearer  of  Prayer,  in  the  full  assur- 
ance that  He  will  attend  to  our  cry  and  give  us  that 
which  He  sees  that  we  require.  No  recent  appli- 
cation of  modern  science  to  the  business  necessi- 
ties of  our  time  is  to  me  more  remarkable  than  the 
telephone,  by  means  of  which  we  can  converse  with 
a  friend  who  is  to  us  invisible ;  and  every  time  I  hear 
it  employed  it  seems  as  wonderful  to  me  as  it  did  be- 
fore. But  the  earthly  telephone  is  stationary ;  I  must 
go  where  it  is  fixed  before  I  can  employ  it.  Here, 
however,  in  prayer,  I  carry  about  within  my  heart 
a  telephone  through  which  at  any  moment  and  from 
any  place  I  can  cry  right  into  the  ear  of  God  and 
get  an  answer  from  Him.  Ah !  if  we  but  realized 
how  true  that  is  we  should  not  need  to  be  exhorted 
after  this  fashion,  "Let  us,  therefore,  come  boldly 
unto  the  throne  of  grace."  But,  as  it  is,  there  are 
too  many  of  us  who  act  as  if  the  way  to  the  mercy 
seat  were  as  strictly  closed  as  was  that  into  the 
presence  chamber  of  the  Persian  King.  Let  us  get 
rid  of  all  such  unbelief,  and  resolve  to  make  full 
proof  of  the  privilege  of  prayer ;  for  the  Church,  I 
verily  believe,  has  not  yet  discovered  more  than  the 
merest  fraction  of  that  which  this  free  access  to 
God's  throne  implies. 


176  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

But,  in  the  third  place,  let  us  learn  from  the  appeal 
of  Mordecai  to  Esther  that  opportunity  is  the  test 
of  character.  "Who  knoweth,"  he  said,  "whether 
thou  art  come  to  the  kingdom  for  such  a  time  as 
this  !"  Here,  to  the  pious  kinsman  of  the  Queen, 
was  the  explanation  of  her  exaltation.  Now  it  was 
to  be  seen  whether  or  not  she  would  be  true  to  the 
principles  which  he  had  instilled  into  her,  and  she 
was  to  pass  into  the  order  of  heroines  or  to  sink 
into  the  oblivion  of  failure.  This  was  her  "narrow 
place,  where  was  no  way  to  turn  either  to  the  right- 
hand  or  to  the  left."  It  was  the  tidal  time  of  her 
life,  the  great  opportunity  of  her  existence,  and  the 
question  was  whether  she  would  rise  to  the  occasion 
and  make  it  subservient  to  her  greatness,  or  whether 
it  would  sweep  her  away  with  it  as  weak,  irresolute, 
and  unequal  to  the  emergency.  Happily,  she  stood 
the  test,  and  by  her  courageous  self-devotion  proved 
that  she  was  worthy  of  the  affection  with  which  her 
foster-father  regarded  her.  Character  is  revealed 
only  by  being  tested,  and  that  test  often  comes 
in  the  shape  of  sudden  elevation.  The  common 
idea,  I  know,  is  that  character  is  tested  only  by 
affliction ;  but  I  am  not  sure  if  prosperity  be  not  a 
more  searching  acid  than  adversity.  Here,  for  ex- 
ample, is  a  man  living  in  a  comparatively  private 
position.  His  conduct,  so  far,  is  exemplary.  His 
little  failures  are  hardly  worth  mentioning  in  con- 
trast with  what  is  regarded  as  his  general  excellence. 
He  seems  marked  out  for  promotion.     And  promo- 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  177 

tion  comes,  so  that  he  is  put  into  a  place  of  public 
prominence  and  responsibility.  But  in  that  place 
he  turns  out  an  utter  failure.  Everybody  is  disap- 
pointed. Yet  the  explanation  is  that  the  new  op- 
portunity was  a  temptation,  the  strain  of  which 
sprung  a  leak  in  him,  and  thereby  revealed  a  hidden 
weakness,  the  existence  of  which  had  not  before 
been  suspected.  Hazael  might  have  passed  for  a 
kind-hearted  man  if  he  had  never  had  the  chance, 
as  men  say,  of  showing  his  cruelty  as  a  king ;  and 
in  this  connection  who  can  forget  the  epigram  of 
the  great  Roman  historian  concerning  one  of  the 
vilest  rulers  that  ever  sat  on  the  throne  of  the 
Caesars.  When  speaking  of  the  good  reputation  of 
his  youth,  he  says,  "An  admirable  emperor,  if  only 
he  had  never  reigned .?"  But  there  are  others,  like 
Esther  here,  whose  true  greatness  has  only  been 
revealed  by  the  opportunity  which  some  critical 
emergency  has  given  them.  Such  was  Joseph  in 
Egypt ;  such,  also,  was  Daniel  in  Babylon,  and  such 
may  you  prove  to  be,  if  God  in  His  providence 
should  put  you  into  similar  narrow  places.  On 
such  occasions,  as  well  as  in  the  case  of  the  solemn 
event  in  connection  with  which  the  poet  uses  the 
expression,  we  may  say  with  him,  "  the  readiness  is 
all."  But  that  readiness  is  not  to  be  obtained 
merely  by  wishing  for  it  at  the  time  ;  for  character 
is  a  growth,  and  does  not  come  to  a  man  or  a 
woman,  ready-made,  in  the  moment  of  urgency. 
The  sublime  opportunities  of  life,  indeed,  are  the 
8* 


178  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

things  by  which  character  is  tested,  and  these  come 
only  now  and  then  to  any  of  us,  perhaps  never  more 
than  once  to  some  of  us ;  but  what  that  test  shall 
bring  to  light  is  determined  by  the  commonplaces 
of  life  beneath  and  behind  that  ordeal,  just  as  here 
the  character  of  Esther  was  formed  by  the  daily 
training  of  Mordecai,  and  her  improvement  of  it  in 
the  quiet  times,  when  the  thought  of  her  coming  to 
the  kingdom  had  never  entered  into  the  mind  of 
either  of  them, 

Now,  this  is  a  truth  which  ought  never  to  be 
lost  sight  of  by  any  one  among  us.  What  we 
shall  do  in  a  crisis  depends  upon  what  we  have 
been  doing  all  along  in  the  ordinary  routine  of  our 
lives,  when  no  such  emergency  was  on  us.  We 
cannot  cut  ourselves  off  from  our  past.  There  is  a 
continuity  in  our  lives,  such  that  the  habits  which 
we  have  formed  in  the  days  that  are  gone  do  largely 
condition  for  us  our  resources  in  the  present.  Every 
day  we  live  we  are  either  adding  to  that  constant 
element  in  us  which  constitutes  our  truest  selves, 
and  so  increasing  that  reserve  force  on  which  in 
times  of  emergency  we  can  draw  with  advantage, 
or  we  are  expending  with  imprudent  prodigality  our 
spiritual  capital,  and  living  morally  beyond  our 
means,  so  that  when  a  crisis  comes  we  cannot  stand 
it,  and  must  inevitably  go  down.  The  careful  man 
who  husbands  his  earnings  and  stores  them  in 
some  safe  bank  is  able,  when  a  time  of  adversity 
comes  upon  him,  to  tide  over  the  difficulty  by  break- 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  179 

ing  in  upon  the  surplus  which  he  has  accumulated. 
We  all  see  and  admit  that  in  the  case  of  deposits 
that  are  made  outside  of  ourselves,  and  which  are 
not  us  so  much  as  they  are  ours.  But  we  too  fre- 
quently fail  to  take  note  of  it  in  respect  to  the  char- 
acter deposits  or  drafts  which  we  are  constantly 
making  on  or  from  ourselves— meaning,  thereby,  our 
souls.  When  I  was  a  student  in  the  University  of 
Glasgow  I  had  a  friend  who  was  preparing  himself 
for  the  medical  profession,  and  who,  on  account  of 
his  proficiency,  was  made  clerk  to  the  Royal  Infirm- 
ary of  the  city.  He  told  me  that  as  patients  were 
brought  in  to  that  institution  a  careful  note  was 
taken  of  their  former  habits,  and  that  in  all  cases  of 
typhus  fever  or  severe  surgical  operations  he  could 
almost  infallibly  predict  the  issue  from  the  facts 
which  were  then  submitted  to  him.  If  the  patient 
had  been  temperate  and  steady  in  his  former  life, 
and  had  been  careful  not  to  injure  himself  by  ex- 
cesses of  any  sort,  it  was,  humanly  speaking,  all 
but  certain  that  he  would  recover ;  but  if  he  had 
been  habitually  intemperate  or  vicious,  it  was  equal- 
ly certain  that  he  would  die.  He  had  overdrawn 
the  capital  of  his  constitution,  and  so  when  the 
emergency  came  there  was  nothing  to  sustain  him 
through  it,  and  he  went  down.  Now,  somehow 
similar  it  is  with  men  spiritually.  Our  common 
daily  life,  whether  we  will  confess  it  to  ourselves  or 
not,  is  either  adding  to  our  soul's  capital  of  strength 
or  taking  from  it.     There  is  going  on  constantly 


l8o  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

within  us  a  process  either  of  invigoration  and  im- 
provement or  of  deterioration  and  enfeeblement ; 
and  though  we  may  not  think  of  it  at  the  time,  we 
are  thereby  either  fitting  ourselves  for  taking  the 
tide  of  opportunity  at  the  moment  when  it  is  at  the 
flood,  or  for  letting  the  occasion  go  past  unimproved, 
so  that  we  shall  be  left  stranded  on  the  rock  of  ruin. 
If,  as  each  morning  dawns,  we  meet  every  duty  as 
it  calls  us,  or  face  every  temptation  as  it  attacks  us, 
as  a  duty  to  be  performed,  or  a  temptation  to  be  re- 
sisted out  of  regard  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  we  shall 
thereby  add  to  our  store  of  strength  for  the  con- 
fronting of  what  may  yet  be  before  us  ;  but  if  we  go 
through  our  lives  seeking  only  our  own  ease  or  the 
gratification  of  our  appetites,  or  the  indulgence  of 
some  evil  ambition,  we  are,  in  all  that,  only  weaken- 
ing ourselves,  and  making  ourselves  so  much  the 
less  to  be  relied  upon  when  we  come  into  our  king- 
dom, and  have  to  face  a  time  like  that  which  Esther 
was  here  required  to  meet.  Travellers  tell  us  of  a 
tree  in  tropical  countries,  the  inner  parts  of  which 
are  sometimes  eaten  out  by  ants,  while  the  bark  and 
leaves  remain  apparently  as  fresh  as  ever,  and  it  is 
not  till  the  tornado  comes  and  sweeps  it  down  that 
its  weakness  is  discovered.  But  the  storm  did  not 
make  the  tree  weak  :  it  only  revealed  how  weak  it 
really  was ;  and  its  feebleness  was  the  result  of  the 
gnawings  of  innumerable  insects  through  a  long 
course  of  years.  In  like  manner,  if  we  let  our  char- 
acters be  honey-combed  by  neglect  of  common  duty, 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  l8l 

or  by  daily  indulgence  in  secret  sin,  or  by  habitual 
yielding  to  some  temptation,  we  cannot  expect  any- 
thing else  than  failure  when  the  testing  hour  shall 
come. 

What  an  importance  thus  attaches  to  what  I  may 
call  the  commonplace  of  life !  We  are  apt,  when 
we  read  such  a  history  as  that  before  us,  to  ex- 
claim, "  How  tremendously  important  these  grand 
outstanding  opportunities  of  doing  some  great  serv- 
ice are !"  And  no  doubt  they  are  all  that  we  can 
say  they  are.  But  then  we  forget  that  the  bearing 
in  these  of  the  individuals  to  whom  they  have  been 
given  will  depend  on  the  characters  which  they 
have  been  forming  and  strengthening  in  the  ordi- 
nary routine  life  of  everyday  before  they  came  into 
their  kingdom.  It  is  out  of  the  commonplace,  well 
and  faithfully  done,  that  the  heroic  is  born;  and 
the  splendid  devotion  of  Esther  to  the  welfare  of 
her  people  would  never  have  been  heard  of  had  she 
not  meekly  learned  and  diligently  practised  the  les- 
sons of  her  girlhood  which  Mordecai  taught  her  in 
his  pious  home.  The  prize-taker  at  the  end  of  the 
year  is  the  daily  plodder  all  through  it.  The  gain- 
ing of  his  diploma  by  a  student  depends,  no  doubt, 
on  the  manner  in  which  he  passes  his  final  exami- 
nation. That  is  for  him  the  equivalent  of  this  occa- 
sion in  the  life  of  Esther ;  but,  then,  the  proficiency 
which  at  that  time  he  manifests  does  itself  depend 
on  the  steady,  constant  perseverance  which  he  has 
maintained  in  his  class  work  from  hour  to  hour 


l82  ESTHER  THE   QUEEN. 

throughout  his  course.  If  he  has  been  habitually 
trifling  during  all  his  years  of  college  life,  he  will 
be  rejected;  but  if  he  has  been  doing  his  work 
faithfully  from  day  to  day,  from  week  to  week,  from 
month  to  month,  and  from  year  to  year,  his  name 
will  be  found  at  length  upon  the  honor  roll.  So, 
in  the  work  of  our  common  life,  we  are  each  day 
making  or  marring  ourselves  for  the  critical  oppor- 
tunities of  our  career.  We  are  either  prodigally 
draining  away  our  soul's  capital  by  sin,  so  that 
when  we  come  to  need  it  most  we  shall  have  none, 
and  shall  be  like  Samson  shorn  of  his  strength; 
or  we  are  accumulating  resources  through  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ  and  obedience  unto  him,  on  which  we 
can  draw  securely  in  our  time  of  emergency.  Do 
not,  therefore,  lose  the  commonplace  in  waiting  for 
the  great  opportunity ;  but  improve  the  common- 
place by  doing  your  best  in  it  for  Christ,  and  so  you 
will  be  ready  to  take  advantage  of  the  opportunity 
when  it  does  appear,  I  repeat  it,  and  may  God 
write  it  deeply  upon  all  our  hearts,  it  is  out  of  the 
commonplace,  well  and  faithfully  done,  that  the 
heroic  is  born  in  the  moment  of  opportunity.  It  is 
to  the  doing  of  that  commonplace  that  God  calls  us 
now ;  and  by  our  doing  that  we  shall  prepare  our- 
selves for  the  manifestation  of  Esther's  devotion, 
when,  like  her,  we  come  to  our  kingdom  and  our 
crisis. 


VI. 

THE  CRISIS  MET. 
Esther  V.     1-14. 

The  third  day  has  come.  But  Esther  does  not 
shrink  from  the  work  which  she  has  undertaken. 
It  is  with  a  palpitating  heart,  indeed,  that  she  be- 
gins to  array  herself  for  her  appearance  before 
Xerxes.  But  her  head  is  as  clear  as  ever,  and  her 
woman's  wit  does  not  desert  her.  Not  hers  the 
fanaticism  of  those  foolish  people  who  imagine  that 
because  they  have  appealed  to  God,  they  need  use 
no  means  themselves  to  bring  about  that  which  they 
desire.  Rather  does  she  show  the  sincerity  of  her 
religious  fasting  on  the  two  former  days  by  the 
elaborate  attention  which  she  pays  to  her  toilet  on 
the  third.  It  is  little,  indeed,  that  she  cares  for 
dress  or  ornamentation  in  themselves  at  present, 
for  the  fate  of  her  people  is  trembling  in  the  bal- 
ance, and  weighed  against  that  they  are  felt  to  be 
less  than  nothing  and  vanity.  Yet,  just  because  of 
her  devotion  to  her  kinsfolk,  she  is  more  than  usu- 
ally careful  about  her  apparel  at  this  time.  If  she 
has  one  robe  which  Xerxes  had  praised  more  than 


184  ESTHER   THE  QUEEN. 

all  others,  she  will  wear  it  now ;  if  there  be  a  brace- 
let or  a  jewel  in  her  case  which  has  specially  en- 
dearing associations  connecting  it  with  Xerxes,  she 
will  put  it  on  her  now.  Nothing  must  be  left  un- 
done that  can  be  done  to  please  his  eye  and  move 
his  heart.  Then  as  the  hour  for  her  great  enter- 
prise strikes,  she  summons  all  her  fortitude  to  sus- 
tain her  through  it.  Calmness  comes  into  her  spirit 
with  the  need.  The  look  of  care  passes  from  her 
.countenance,  and,  putting  on  her  "  royalty" — for  so 
the  word  is — majestic  in  mien,  radiant  in  beauty, 
and  smiling  in  loveliness,  she  makes  her  way  to  the 
end  of  the  pillared  avenue  which  led  up  to  the 
throne  of  the  Emperor,  and  standing  there,  where 
he  could  see  her  at  a  glance,  she  waits  the  result  of 
her  application  for  an  audience.  Placid  in  external 
appearance,  she  cannot  but  be  anxious  within.  Was 
she  to  be  invited  forward,  or  would  she  be  con- 
signed to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  executioner? 
She  can  hear  her  heart  beat  as  she  stands,  and  the 
moment  seems  an  hour ;  but,  oh,  joy  of  joys !  he 
has  looked  up  and  smiled  upon  her,  and  lo!  the 
gilded  sceptre  is  lifted  from  his  side,  and  held  out 
by  him  for  her  touch,  as  he  exclaims,  "  What  wilt 
thou.  Queen  Esther?  and  what  is  thy  request?  it 
shall  be  given  thee,  to  the  half  of  the  kingdom." 

These  were  formal  words,  not  intended  to  be 
literally  taken,  but  spoken  after  the  hyperbolical 
fashion  of  an  Eastern  court.  They  are  similar  to 
those  uttered  by  Herod  to  the  daughter  of  Herodias, 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN,  185 

and  though  in  that  case,  as  in  this,  the  issue  was 
serious  enough,  yet  if  the  petitioner  had  gone  be- 
yond a  certain  h'mit  and  asked  for  more  than  was 
considered  proper,  she  would  have  suffered  severely 
for  her  rashness.  Esther  understood  all  that.  She 
knew  also  how  undue  haste  doth  often  most  seri- 
ously hinder  that  which  it  desires  to  further,  and, 
therefore,  she  took  time  to  tell  her  errand.  Where 
another  might  have  given  way  to  impulse,  and  made 
a  passionate  appeal  for  that  which  was  so  near  her 
heart,  she,  being  now  relieved  from  all  anxiety  as  to 
her  reception,  calmly  took  her  leisure,  for  "  he  that 
believeth  shall  not  make  haste."  With  sagacious 
forethought,  in  the  anticipation  of  her  propitious 
reception  by  the  King,  she  had  caused  an  elaborate 
banquet  to  be  prepared.  She  knew  how  fond  he 
was  of  banquets,  and  now  she  simply  requests  that 
he  and  Haman  will  honor  her  by  coming  that  day 
to  her  table.  I  say  she  simply  requests,  and  yet 
such  an  invitation  was  very  unusual.  For  the  cus- 
tom was  that  the  king  and  queen  should  dine  sepa- 
rately in  the  apartments  set  apart  for  each,  and  the 
asking  of  another  male  guest  who  was  not  a  rela- 
tion, was  an  almost  unheard-of  thing,  which  Haman 
would  regard  as  a  peculiar  honor,  and  which  the 
King  would  view  as  something  done  for  his  particu- 
lar pleasure.  It  is  possible  that  Esther  may  have 
formerly  shown  some  dislike  for  Haman  ;  perhaps 
it  was  because  of  that  she  had  fallen  somewhat  into 
disfavor  with  the  Emperor,  so  that  now  this  invita- 


l86  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

tion  of  his  favorite  would  seem  to  him  to  be  a 
virtual  acknowledgment  that  she  had  been  wrong, 
and  that  she  had  come  at  length  to  agree  with  him 
in  his  estimate  of  the  vizier.  We  cannot  tell.  We 
know  not  how  it  appeared  to  Xerxes ;  nor  do  we 
know  what  Esther's  real  motive  for  asking  Haman 
was.  Probably  she  felt  that  when  the  crisis  came 
it  was  important  that  the  Agagite  should  be  in  the 
presence,  and  if  her  first  intention  was  to  bring 
things  to  a  point  that  day,  this  will  sufficiently  ac- 
count for  her  inviting  him. 

But  if  we  suppose  that  she  planned  from  the 
very  first  to  have  two  banquets,  one  on  each  of  two 
successive  days,  as  she  actually  had,  then  this  first 
invitation  may  have  been  designed  to  lull  the  sus- 
picions of  "  the  Jews'  enemy,"  and  keep  him  from 
taking  measures  to  secure  his  escape.  As  I  read 
the  story,  however,  the  former  of  these  suppositions 
is  the  more  natural.  Esther  had  no  other  thought, 
when  she  gave  the  invitation,  than  that  she  would 
carry  the  matter  through  that  day;  and  for  the 
carrying  of  it  through  it  was  essential  that  Haman 
should  be  there.  So  Xerxes  sent  for  him,  bidding 
the  messenger  hasten  him  at  once  to  the  palace, 
and  the  two  sat  down  to  Esther's  feast.  Every- 
thing went  well,  and  the  King  was  even  more  com- 
plaisant than  he  was  at  first,  so  that  he  did  not 
wait  for  Esther  to  enter  upon  her  trouble,  but,  after 
he  had  feasted,  he  opened  the  affair  himself,  saying 
again  to  Esther,  "  What  is  thy  petition  ?  and  it  shall 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  187 

be  granted  thee :  and  what  is  thy  request  ?  even  to 
the  half  of  the  kingdom  it  shall  be  performed."  It 
was  all  very  gracious,  and  Esther,  thus  encouraged, 
began  her  reply  :  "  My  petition  and  my  request  is  " 
— but  there  she  faltered.  Something  occurred  to 
make  her  change  her  purpose  even  at  the  moment 
at  which  she  was  about  to  carry  it  through.  Either 
she  felt  that  she  was  going  to  break  down,  and  so 
could  not  trust  herself  to  proceed,  lest  she  should 
burst  into  a  flood  of  tears,  which  she  knew  would 
be  not  a  help  but  a  hinderance  to  her  cause,  for  that 
which  she  had  undertaken  to  do  required  the  ut- 
most self-possession.  Or  she  saw  something  in 
the  face  of  the  King  which  made  her  pause.  Or 
she  shrunk  at  the  last  instant  from  the  dread  ordeal, 
and  felt  that  after  all  that  she  had  already  gone 
through  that  day,  she  required  some  rest  before  she 
attempted  more.  But  however  we  may  explain  it, 
the  fact  remains  that,  after  having  just  begun  her 
answer,  she  faltered  and  changed  her  mind,  so.  that 
instead  of  exposing  the  plot  of  Haman,  she  con- 
tented herself  with  inviting  the  King  and  him  to 
another  banquet,  which  she  would  prepare  for  them 
the  next  day,  and  with  promising  that  then  she 
would  make  her  business  known  unto  the  King. 
Now,  whatever  the  motive  or  occasion  for  this 
change  of  front  at  the  last  moment  in  the  heart  of 
Esther  was,  the  reader  of  this  history  as  a  whole 
can  see  that  her  delay  was  of  God,  and  that  it  gave 
time  for  the  refreshing  of  the  King's  memory  with 


1 88  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

his  obligation  to  Mordecai  for  the  exposure  of  the 
plot  by  which  his  life  had  been  endangered,  and 
thereby  led  up  to  special  honor  for  the  honest 
Jew,  and  peculiar  mortification  for  the  unscrupulous 
Agagite.  It  naight  have  been  a  mere  passing  whim 
of  Esther  to  put  off  the  moment  of  excitement ;  but 
even  of  such  a  small  matter  as  that  God  took  cog- 
nizance, and  it  was  one  of  the  all  things  that 
wrought  together  for  the  deliverance  of  His  people 
from  destruction. 

And  now  the  banquet  is  over,  and  Haman  leaves 
the  palace  with  more  haughtiness  than  ever. 
"  What  a  mighty  man  am  I !  and  who  so  much  to 
be  envied  in  all  this  empire  of  a  hundred  and 
twenty  provinces  ?  I  have  had  the  confidence  of 
the  King  for  long,  and  now  at  length  Queen  Esther 
has  taken  me  into  favor.  How  rapidly,  too,  I  have 
advanced  in  her  regard.  I  have  banqueted  with 
her  to-day,  and  I  am  to  be  her  guest  to-morrow. 
Oh,  fortunate  Haman,  thou  art  on  the  high-road 
to  glory,  and  there  is  nothing  too  lofty  for  thine 
ambition !"  So,  perhaps,  he  soliloquized  as  he 
moved  along,  but  when  he  reached  the  King's  gate, 
and  the  chamberlains  rose  to  make  their  reverent 
homage  before  him,  he  saw  the  hated  Mordecai 
sitting  unmoved  in  his  place,  and  that  sight  liter- 
ally maddened  him.  What  would  he  not  give  to 
make  away  with  him  where  he  sits  ?  To  think  that 
a  contemptible  cur  like  him  should  thus  defy  him 
to  his  face  !     It  was  infamous,  and  no  punishment 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  1 89 

could  be  too  great  for  such  dishonor!  But  why 
should  he  make  a  disturbance  now  and  stain  the 
porch  with  blood  ?  The  thirteenth  of  Adar  was 
coming,  and  then — and  then — the  dog  should  die 
and  all  his  race  along  with  him. 

Comforted  (!)  with  such  thoughts,  he  kept  his 
hands  off  the  Jew  for  the  present.  But  it  required 
an  effort,  for  "  he  refrained  himself."  So  he  took 
his  way  to  his  home,  but  not  with  the  same  compla- 
cent self-conceit  as  he  had  left  the  palace,  for  Morde- 
cai's  stiffness  had  poisoned  his  joy,  and  like  Ahab, 
when  Naboth  refused  to  let  him  have  his  vineyard, 
he  went  to  his  house  "  heavy  and  sore  displeased." 
He  called  for  his  wife  and  his  friends,  and  told 
them  of  all  his  greatness,  his  riches,  the  multitude 
of  his  children,  the  honors  which  the  King  had 
heaped  upon  him,  and,  above  all,  the  particular 
regard  which  Esther  had  shown  to  him  in  her  in- 
vitations for  that  day  and  the  next — but,  he  added, 
with  a  scowl  which  seemed  as  if  the  thing  which  he 
bemoaned  had  made  all  the  others  of  no  account, 
"  All  this  availeth  me  nothing,  so  long  as  I  see  Mor- 
decai  the  Jew  sitting  at  the  King's  gate."  Poor 
man  !  how  little  worth  are  all  thy  riches  when  a 
small  thing  like  that  outweighs  them  all  ?  How 
empty  are  thy  honors,  when  this  slight  dishonor 
drives  them  out  of  mind !  How  paltry  thou  art  in 
thyself,  when  the  conduct  of  another  towards  thee 
fills  thee  with  such  unhappiness  !  Away  with  thee ! 
thou  pompous  parasite!  thou  fawning  sycophant! 


190  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

thou  proud  idolater  of  self!  If  there  had  been 
anything  worth  reverence  in  thee,  thou  wouldst 
not  so  have  writhed  under  Mordecai's  contempt ! 

But  his  wife  was  little  better  than  the  echo  of 
himself.  She  could  read  him  well,  and  knowing 
what  would  please  him  best,  she  said,  "  What  need 
you  thus  distress  yourself  for  a  Jew  ?  Go,  erect  a 
cross  there  in  your  court,  and  ask  the  King  that 
Mordecai  may  be  impaled  thereon  to-morrow. 
After  all  these  tokens  of  his  favor  he  will  not  refuse 
you  this  one  more.  Then,  when  you  have  crucified 
your  enemy,  *go  thou  in  merrily  with  the  King 
unto  the  banquet.' "  What  ?  Merrily,  Zeresh,  after 
such  a  murder  as  that }  Merrily  ?  Ah,  if  thou 
didst  but  know  who  shall  hang  upon  that  gallows 
there  would  be  no  such  word  upon  thy  lips  !  But 
the  saying  pleased  her  husband,  and  the  cross  was 
raised,  fifty  cubits  high.  As  he  looked  at  it,  he 
might  say  within  himself  (perhaps  with  a  grim 
smile),  "  He  shall  be  exalted  enough  when  he  is 
fixed  on  that."  But  not  so  fast,  Haman,  not  so 
fast !  There  is  another  to  reckon  with.  Man  pro- 
poses— it  is  God  that  disposes,  and  the  cunningest 
schemes  of  earthly  plotters  are  often  put  to  confu- 
sion. 

But  let  us  turn  now  and  see  what  lessons  we  may 
glean  for  ourselves  from  this  interesting  history. 
And  in  the  first  place  we  have  here  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  fact  that  when  the  crisis  comes,  God 
gives  His  people  grace  to  meet  it.     Undeniably, 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  igr 

Esther  was  greatly  upset  when  she  received  Morde- 
cai's  first  message ;  and  even  when  she  sent  back 
her  servant  to  her  foster-father  with  the  report  of 
her  heroic  resolution,  there  was  that  in  her  last 
words  ("  if  I  perish,  I  perish  ")  which  betokened 
that  fear  and  trembling  were  in  her  heart.  During 
her  days  of  fasting,  too,  we  may  suppose  that  she 
looked  forward  with  much  trepidation  to  the  mo- 
ment of  her  entering  in  before  the  King.  But  when 
the  time  came,  God  gave  her  strength  to  do  her 
work,  and  she  went  forward  to  it  calmly,  to  find 
that  the  way  was  clear.  The  Lord  strengthened 
her  to  gather  herself  up  for  the  crisis,  and  to  hold 
herself,  as  we  may  say,  well  in  hand  all  through. 
And  that  very  composure  lent  a  charm  to  her 
beauty  which  prevailed  with  Xerxes  and  won  his 
smile.  Now,  this  is  far  from  being  an  uncommon 
experience  with  the  children  of  God.  That  which 
in  the  prospect  is  most  formidable  turns  out  to  be 
in  the  reality  most  simple.  They  go  anxiously  for- 
ward, distressing  themselves  with  the  question, 
*'  Who  shall  roll  us  away  the  stone  ?"  but  when 
they  come  up  to  the  place  they  find  it  "  already 
rolled  away,"  and  an  angel  sitting  on  it.  It  is  not 
that  there  was  no  need  for  anxiety ;  it  is  not,  either, 
that  there  was  no  necessity  for  prayer ;  but,  rather, 
that  in  the  supreme  moment  all  cause  of  anxiety  is 
removed,  and  the  prayer  is  both  fully  and  speedily 
answered.  When  God  asks  us  to  perform  some 
arduous  or  dangerous  duty,  we  may  rely  that  the 


192  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

way  up  to  the  duty  will  be  made  open  to  us,  and 
that  strength  will  be  given  to  us  for  its  discharge. 
That  is  a  true  word  which  is  given  to  us  through 
Isaiah :  "  I  will  make  darkness  light  before  them 
and  crooked  things  straight.  These  things  will  I  do 
unto  them,  and  not  forsake  them."*  The  blessing 
of  Asher — "  as  thy  days,  so  shall  thy  strength  be  "t 
— is  made  over  to  every  Christian  in  the  new  prom- 
ise to  Paul :  "  My  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee :  for 
my  strength  is  made  perfect  in  weakness." t  How 
often  and  in  how  many  ways  have  these  been  made 
good  to  Christians  in  these  days  !  It  is  a  time  of 
extremity ;  the  enemies  of  truth  are  bitterly  assail- 
ing the  very  citadel  of  the  faith ;  and  now  a  stand 
has  to  be  made  which  shall  determine  the  issue  for 
years.  The  eyes  of  all  humble  Christians  are 
turned  to  one  singularly-gifted  man ;  all  are  saying 
that,  like  Esther,  he  has  come  to  the  kingdom  for 
such  a  time  as  this.  But  he  is  full  of  anxiety  and 
trepidation.  At  length  he  consents  to  lift  the 
standard  and  enter  on  the  conflict,  and  when  the 
time  comes  he  is  carried  away  out  of  himself  and 
so  sensibly  helped  by  the  Spirit  of  God  that  he 
sweeps  everything  before  him  on  the  resistless 
torrent  of  his  eloquence.  Or  there  is  a  terrible 
disease  invading  the  frame ;  it  cannot  be  cured, 
and  if  let  alone  it  will  issue  in  a  lingering  illness 
and  painful  death.     There  is  nothing  for  it  but  a 

*  Isaiah  xlii.,  16.  f  Deut.  xxxiii.,  25.  |  2  Cor.  xii.,  9. 


ESTHER  THE   QUEEN,  193 

critical  surgical  operation,  and  yet  from  that  the 
patient  shrinks.  At  length,  however,  the  consent 
is  given.  It  is  to  be  performed  on  a  certain  day 
and  at  a  certain  hour.  The  meanwhile  is  given  to 
prayer,  and  all  the  friends  and  relatives  are  re- 
quested, each  in  his  own  closet,  to  join  in  the  sup- 
plication. Then,  when  the  hour  strikes,  the  diseased 
one  walks  with  a  strength  that  is  not  her  own  into 
the  room,  and  gives  herself  into  the  hands  of  the 
surgeons,  saying,  "Living  or  dying,  I  am  the 
Lord's."  The  shrinking  is  gone,  the  fear  is  sub- 
dued, and  there  is  nothing  but  a  calm  heroism, 
which  is  the  gift  of  God  for  the  occasion.  Or,  yet 
again,  a  difficult  duty  is  to  be  performed — a  brother 
is  to  be  expostulated  with  for  some  serious  sin,  or 
to  be  warned  of  some  insidious  danger.  But  we  do 
not  know  how  he  will  take  it,  and  the  question 
comes  to  be  whether  our  effort  to  save  him  may 
not  aggravate  the  danger  to  which  he  is  exposed. 
Who  will  undertake  the  task  ?  There  is  one  who, 
of  all  others,  seems  to  be  the  fittest ;  but  the  very 
idea  of  it  fills  him  with  anxiety.  How  shall  he  pro- 
ceed ?  There  is  nothing  for  it  but  prayer ;  and  in 
the  faith  that  God  will  answer  he  goes  forward. 
He  finds  the  way  marvellously  opened.  He  has  a 
most  satisfactory  interview.  All  his  fears  are  dis- 
pelled— he  has  saved  his  brother!  Who  has  not 
known  of  many  instances  like  these  ?  They  are 
just  as  remarkable  as  this  case  of  Esther  here,  and 
they  all  encourage  us  to  go  forward  to  the  crisis 
9 


194  ESTHER    THE   QUEEN. 

that  is  inevitable,  in  the  full  assurance  that  God 
will  go  before  us  to  prepare  our  way  and  give  us  His 
grace  to  sustain  our  hearts.  And  they  tell  us,  also, 
that  when  the  last  trial  comes,  and  we  shall  be  re- 
quired to  put  off  this  tabernacle  and  enter  in  before 
the  King  of  Kings,  we  shall  find  dying  grace  for  a 
dying  hour.  "These  things,"  saith  Jehovah,  "will 
I  do  unto  them  and  not  forsake  them."  Even  if 
we  had  not  seen  so  many  fulfilments  of  His  word,  it 
would  still  be  our  duty  and  our  privilege  to  trust 
Him ;  but  now  that  we  have  witnessed  so  many 
proofs  of  His  faithfulness",  who  would  think  of 
doubting  His  promise  ? 

But,  in  the  second  place,  we  may  learn  from  what 
is  recorded  here  of  Haman,  that  when  the  heart  is 
not  right  with  God,  a  little  matter  will  make  a  great 
misery.  In  spite  of  all  his  glory  and  all  his  pos- 
sessions, Haman's  happiness  was  poisoned  by  Mor- 
decai's  contempt.  He  thought  that  but  for  that 
one  thing  he  would  be  perfectly  happy.  But,  alas  ! 
he  had  made  quite  a  wrong  diagnosis  of  his  case. 
He  mistook  the  symptom  for  the  disease.  He 
did  lack  one  thing  for  true  felicity,  but  that  one 
thing  was  not  the  obeisance  of  Mordecai,  but  a 
heart  right  with  God.  For  happiness  does  not 
consist  in  the  bearing  of  others  towards  us,  but  in 
the  relation  of  our  own  souls  to  God.  If  Haman 
had  possessed  a  right  spirit,  renewed  by  the  grace 
of  God,  the  conduct  of  Mordecai  would  have  cost 
him  little  thought.     But  with  the  self-centred  heart 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  1 95 

he  had,  always  worshipping  itself,  and  always  con- 
cerned about  itself,  even  if  Mordecai  had  done 
homage  to  him,  there  would  have  been  something 
else  which,  like  the  dead  fly  in  the  ointment,  would 
have  made  the  whole  unsavory.  There  is  only  one 
infallible  recipe  for  happiness,  and  that  is  the  pos- 
session of  a  heart  at  peace  with  God  and  regener- 
ated by  the  Holy  Spirit.  No  matter  what  a  man 
has,  if  he  have  not  that  he  will  still  be  craving  for 
something  different  from  what  he  has,  and  as  soon 
as  he  gets  that  it  will  lose  its  attraction  for  him, 
and  he  will  cry  for  something  else.  Now,  it  is  just 
such  a  heart  that  Christ  promises  to  give  to  the  be- 
liever, and  in  giving  him  that  he  puts  a  fountain  of 
happiness  into  himself  which  will  be  independent 
of  all  external  circumstances  and  influences.  You 
may  condemn  the  folly  of  Haman  here,  but  until 
you  have  a  new  heart,  such  as  Christ  bestows, 
you  may  depend  upon  it  that  you  are  repeating 
that  folly,  in  some  form  or  other,  in  your  own  his- 
tory. 

And  that  leads  me  to  say  that  the  converse  of 
my  second  lesson  from  this  chapter  is  just  as  true 
as  that  lesson  is  itself.  I  have  been  remarking  that 
when  the  heart  is  not  right  with  God  a  little  matter 
will  make  a  great  misery ;  but  now  I  observe,  as 
my  third  lesson  from  this  history,  that  when  a  little 
matter  makes  a  great  misery,  that  is  an  evidence 
that  the  heart  is  not  right  with  God.  I  have  the 
conviction  that  this  experience  of  Haman's  is  far 


196  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

from  being  unknown  among  us  in  these  days.  I 
would  not  say  that  every  man  has  his  Mordecai 
sitting  in  the  gate,  and  feels  his  happiness  poisoned 
thereby ;  but  there  are  many  in  whose  cases  things 
equally  unimportant  as  Mordecai's  lack  of  obeis- 
ance have  made  as  much  misery  in  their  souls. 
Now,  wherever  that  is  true,  you  have  something 
wrong  with  the  heart.  The  person  either  has  not 
discovered  and  appropriated  the  value  of  Christ,  or 
he  has  for  the  time  lost  sight  of  all  that  the  Lord  is 
to  him.  When  little  crosses  or  cares  or  unpleasant- 
nesses are  looked  at,  as  it  were,  through  a  micro- 
scope, and  made  to  bulk  so  largely  before  our  eyes 
that  we  can  see  nothing  but  them,  we  are  just  as 
bad  as  Haman  was,  and  we  need  to  revise  our 
whole  theory  of  life.  If,  like  Paul,  we  can  say,  "  to 
me  to  live  is  Christ,"  these  mosquito  troubles  will 
not  concern  us  much ;  but  if  they  count  for  a  great 
deal  with  us,  and  we  act  as  if  our  whole  happiness 
depended  upon  them,  then  we  have  reason  to  fear 
that  our  hearts  are  still  unregenerate,  and  that  our 
lives  are  devoted  to  our  own  ease  and  enjoyment, 
rather  than  to  the  service  of  the  Lord.  The  "  one 
thing  needful "  is  a  new  heart,  created  in  us  through 
faith  in  Christ  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
if  we  are  harping  continually  on  the  lack  of  any 
other  thing — whether  it  be  Mordecai's  obeisance 
or  Naboth's  vineyard  or  whatever  else — we  are 
still  in  the  gall  of  bitterness  and  in  the  bond  of  in- 
iquity. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  197 

Finally;  it  is  a  great  misfortune  when  a  man's 
worst  counsellors  are  in  his  own  house.  If  Zeresh 
had  been  a  woman  of  sense,  she 'would  have  talked 
to  Haman  in  quite  another  strain  than  that  which 
she  adopted.  Instead  of  inflaming  his  hatred  of 
Mordecai,  she  would  dextrously,  and  by  the  method 
of  indirectness  which  every  good  wife  knows  how 
to  employ,  have  turned  his  thoughts  away  from 
him  altogether,  and  fixed  them  on  the  blessings  in 
his  lot  which  he  had  already  enumerated.  But  in- 
stead of  that,  she  was  vastly  worse  than  he  was,  for 
he  refrained  himself,  but  she  counselled  immediate 
action  and  the  preparation  of  a  cross,  on  which 
Mordecai  might  be  crucified  the  next  day.  She 
was  to  him  what  Jezebel  was  to  Ahab  in  sacred 
history,  or  what  in  the  great  drama  of  the  poet 
Lady  Macbeth  was  to  her  husband — the  spur  in  his 
side  inciting  him  to  evil  deeds,  which  perhaps  he 
would  never  have  got  the  length  of  devising  but  for 
her  instigation ;  and,  if  all  the  truth  were  known,  it 
might  appear  that  she  had  been  at  the  hatching  of 
the  plot  which  was  to  mature,  as  they  supposed,  on 
the  thirteenth  of  Adar.  As  Dr.  Raleigh  has  said 
here,  "  The  truth  is,  women  are  the  best  and  the 
worst.  Because  they  can  be  the  best,  they  can  be 
the  worst.  Because  they  can  rise  to  the  highest 
in  moral  gran,deur,  in  self-sacrificing  love,  in  the 
things  which  bring  human  nature  nearest  to  the 
angelic  world,  therefore  they  can  sink  to  the  lowest, 
and  when  '  past  feeling,'  can  be  most  like  the  angels 


198  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

fallen."  *  Here,  then,  is  a  beacon  of  warning  for 
all  wedded  wives.  Let  them  beware  of  adding  fuel 
to  a  fire  already  burning  far  too  strongly  in  their 
husband's  hearts,  as  Zeresh  did  here.  When  they 
see  those  whom  they  love  best  going  in  the  way  of 
envy  or  passion  or  revenge,  let  them  exert  them- 
selves wisely,  yet  firmly,  to  alter  their  determination. 
And  let  those  husbands  who  have  wives  that  are 
wise  enough  to  see  when  they  are  going  astray, 
and  brave  enough  to  endeavor  to  keep  them  from 
doing  that  which  is  wrong,  thank  God  for  them  as 
for  the  richest  blessings  of  their  lives.  A  wife  who 
is  merely  the  echo  of  her  husband,  or  who,  as  in 
the  instance  before  us,  only  seconds  and  supports 
that  which  she  sees  he  is  determined  upon,  is  no 
helpmeet  for  any  man.  But  she  who  has  the  clear 
eye  to  see  the  evil  that  is  in  his  purpose,  the  strong 
love  that  would  rather  brave  his  displeasure  than 
be  a  party  to  his  wrong-doing,  and  the  happy  tact 
of  leading  him  in  the  right  path,  while  she  seems 
only  to  follow — she  is  the  woman  whose  "  price  is 
far  above  rubies."  Happy  is  the  man  who  has 
such  a  helper  and  who  knows  her  value ! 

*  Tke  Book  of  Esther,  by  Alex.  Raleigh,  D.D.,  p.  129. 


VII. 

A   SLEEPLESS  NIGHT. 

Esther  VI. 

The  banquet  is  past,  and  the  night  has  closed 
over  the  city  Shushan.  In  the  house  of  Haman 
may  be  heard  the  hammering  of  those  who,  accord- 
ing to  the  decision  of  the  family  conclave,  have  been 
hastily  commanded  to  have  a  gallows  ready  by  the 
dawn  for  the  execution  of  the  stiff-backed  Mordecai 
thereon.  But  in  the  palace  of  Xerxes  it  is  far  other- 
wise. There  all  have  retired  to  rest,  and  there  is 
nothing  within  or  without  to  break  the  silence  save 
the  pacing  of  the  guard  to  and  fro  upon  his  weary 
and  monotonous  beat.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  the 
luxury  that  was  about  him,  and  all  the  silence  that 
reigned  around  him,  the  King  could  not  sleep. 
Powerful  as  he  was,  he  could  not  compel  that "  sweet 
oblivion "  to  come  at  his  command  ,  and  the  re- 
pose which,  unsought,  had  "steeped"  the  "senses'' 
of  many  of  his  poorest  subjects  "  in  forgetfulness," 
refused  to  visit  him  with  its  refreshing  unconscious- 
ness, in  spite  of  all  the  means  he  used  for  its  allure- 
ment.    We  do  not  know  what  caused  his  wakeful- 


200  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

ness,  but  such  an  experience  is  not  so  uncommon 
among  ourselves  that  we  neied  to  seek  eagerly  for 
an  explanation  of  it.  Perhaps  he  had  exceeded  in 
some  way  or  other  at  the  banquet,  and  is  paying 
thus  the  penalty  of  his  imprudence.  Or  he  may 
have  been  piqued  by  Esther's  postponement  of  her 
request  until  the  morrow  into  a  curiosity  as  to  what 
she  could  be  taking  such  measures  to  obtain,  which 
was  worrying  him  because  he  could  neither  gratify 
it  nor  yet  be  content  to  wait  for  its  satisfaction.  Or 
he  may  have  begun  to  revolve  in  his  mind  some 
new  scheme  of  ambition,  the  working  out  of  which 
would  not  allow  him  to  sleep  when  otherwise  he 
might  have  dropped  over;  and  then,  having  thus 
banished  his  first  drowsiness,  he  could  not  bring  it 
back  when  he  would  gladly  have  done  so.  But  at 
last  he  gives  up  all  hope  of  slumber,  and  the  ques- 
tion becomes  "What  shall  I  do  to  while  away  the 
tedious  hours  until  the  morning?"  A  common  re- 
source on  such  occasions  in  Persia  was  music ;  but 
that  does  not  seem  to  have  attracted  him,  and  at 
length  the  thought  suggests  itself  to  him  to  have 
the  records  of  his  reign  brought  out  and  read  to 
him — much  as  one  now,  in  similar  circumstances, 
might  seek  to  amuse  himself  by  the  perusal  of  an 
old  diary.  Many  things  in  these  chronicles  would 
'be  anything  but  amusing  or  agreeable  to  him,  par- 
ticularly the  portions  referring  to  his  Grecian  expe- 
dition, but  whether  from  design  or  at  the  request 
of  the  monarch,  or,  as  men  say  (veiling  their  igno- 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  20I 

ranee  of  all  causes  thereby),  by  accident,  the  Reader, 
chose  that  section  in  which  was  registered  the  great 
service  which  Mordecai  had  rendered  Xerxes  in  the 
discovery  and  revelation  of  the  plot  which  Bigthana 
and  Teresh  had  concocted  for  his  assassination. 
The  rehearsal  of  this  now  almost  forgotten  incident 
led  to  the  inquiry  whether  any  honor  or  dignity 
had  been  conferred  on  Mordecai  as  a  reward  for 
his  fidelity;  and  when  he  found  that  no  such  token 
of  gratitude  had  been  given  to  his  preserver,  he  felt 
that  he  had  been  grossly  neglectful  in  the  case.  It 
was  neither  seemly  in  itself  nor  politic  in  him  to 
let  such  a  service  go  unrecognized,  and  therefore 
he  resolved  that  the  matter  should  receive  immedi- 
ate attention. 

Just  then,  however,  he  heard  a  stir  in  the  court 
as  of  the  arrival  of  some  one  eager  for  an  audience, 
for  it  was  now  the  dawn.  He  asked  who  the  early- 
comer  was,  and  being  informed  that  it  was  Haman, 
he  said,  "  Let  him  come  in."  The  Agagite,  it  is  not 
unlikely,  had  not  slept  much  that  night  either ;  for 
revenge  is  a  poor  anodyne,  and  hatred  is  a  bad  bed- 
fellow. So  he  had  risen  early  that  he  might  follow 
the  counsel  of  Teresh  and  get  Mordecai  out  of  the 
way  in  time  for  his  going  "  merrily,"  in  to  the  ban- 
quet to  which  Esther  had  invited  him.  Therefore, 
before  any  one  else  was  astir,  he  had  come  to  ask 
that  Mordecai  might  be  impaled  upon  his  brand-new 
cross  of  fifty  cubits  high.  But  the  King  knew  noth- 
ing of  all  that,  and  before  there  was  time  or  oppor- 
9* 


202  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

tunity  for  the  introduction  of  anything  else  he  ac- 
costed him  thus  :  "  You  are  just  in  time,  Haman, 
to  help  me  to  decide  this  question  :  what  shall  be 
done  unto  the  man  whom  the  King  delighteth  to 
honor?"  "Aha!"  thought  Haman,  "here  is  some 
new  glory  that  is  designed  for  me,  and,  as  it  is  left 
to  myself,  I  will  make  it  something  that  shall  min- 
ister to  my  further  promotion."  So,  in  the  full 
assurance  that  he  was  prescribing  for  himself,  he 
said  :  "  Let  the  royal  apparel  be  brought  which  the 
King  useth  to  wear,  and  the  horse  that  the  King 
rideth  upon,  and  the  crown  royal  which  is  set  upon 
his  head :  and  let  this  apparel  and  horse  be  delivered 
to  the  hand  of  one  of  the  King's  most  noble  princes, 
that  they  may  array  the  man  withal  whom  the  King 
delighteth  to  honor,  and  bring  him  on  horseback 
through  the  street  of  the  city,  and  proclaim  before 
him,  'Thus  shall  it  be  done  to  the  man  whom  the 
King  delighteth  to  honor.'  " 

Had  he  asked  these  things  avowedly  for  himself, 
Xerxes  would  have  felt  as  Solomon  did  when  he 
said  to  his  mother  concerning  Adonijah,  "Ask  for 
him  the  kingdom  also,"  for  he  would  have  seen 
that  nothing  short  of  that  would  satisfy  his  ambi- 
tion. But  the  Agagite  was  not  so  foolish  as  to  ask 
these  things  directly.  He  thought,  however,  that 
as  the  King  had  consulted  him  apparently  for  some 
third  party,  while  he  really  meant  himself,  he  could 
put  all  that  in  without  being  suspected ;  and  then, 
if  he  turned  out  to  be  right  in  his  premonition,  he 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  203 

would  be  presented  to  the  citizens  of  Shushan  in 
the  royal  garb,  and  the  procession  would  familiarize 
them  with  the  thought  of  him  as  King,  virtually 
saying  to  them,  "  Here,  good  people,  here  is  your 
future  Emperor."  It  was  thus  a  new  scheme  of 
his  own,  extemporized  on  the  spot,  for  the  attain- 
ment of  the  throne  itself.  It  was  not  that  he  cared 
merely  to  have  the  garments  and  insignia  of  royalty 
for  a  few  hours,  but  that  he  might  thus  formally 
propose  himself  as  the  next  King,  and  that,  too, 
under  the  guise  of  being  honored  by  the  present. 
But  how  his  airy  castle  would  fade  away  like  the 
mirage  of  an  Eastern  desert,  and  his  heart  would 
sink  within  him,  when  he  heard  these  words :  "  Make 
haste,  and  take  the  apparel  and  the  horse,  as  thou 
hast  said,  and  do  even  so  to  Mordecai  the  Jew,  that 
sitteth  at  the  King's  gate  :  let  nothing  fail  of  all  that 
thou  hast  spoken."  Was  it  possible  that  he  had 
heard  aright?  Had  it  been  for  Mordecai  that  he 
had  drawn  out  this  splendid  programme .''  Was  he 
himself  to  be  that  one  of  the  King's  most  noble 
princes  who  was  to  walk  as  an  attendant  at  the 
stirrup  of  Mordecai  while  he  rode  in  state,  with  the 
King's  apparel  on,  through  the  city  street  ?  Was 
his  to  be  the  voice  that  should  proclaim  the  words  : 
"  Thus  shall  it  be  done  to  the  man  whom  the  King 
delighteth  to  honor?"  Oh,  it  was  a  bitter  dose  to 
swallow !  Had  the  man  who  was  to  be  thus  hon- 
ored been  any  other  than  a  Jew,  or,  if  a  Jew,  had 
he  been   any  other  than   the  hated   Mordecai,  it 


204  ESTHER  THE   QUEEN. 

would  not  have  been  so  bad.  But  that  such  a 
triumph  should  be  given  to  the  one  man  whose 
refusal  to  do  homage  to  him  had  taken  all  the  joy- 
out  of  his  exaltation ,  that  the  programme  for  that 
triumph  should  have  been  suggested  by  himself; 
and  that  he  should  be  selected  to  carry  it  out,  was 
mortification  indeed.  Had  he  been  planning  for 
Mordecai  all  the  time  he  had  been  thinking  of  him- 
self ?  Yea,  verily,  that  was  the  Nemesis  of  Provi- 
dence ;  and  yet,  bad  as  it  was,  that  was  only  one- 
half  of  the  matter,  for  before  long  he  would  find 
that  he  had  also  been  planning  for  himself  when  he 
had  been  thinking  of  Mordecai.  The  honor  which 
he  had  designed  for  himself  went  to  Mordecai,  and 
the  destruction  which  he  had  devised  for  Mordecai 
fell  upon  himself.  The  royal  apparel  was  worn  by 
the  Jew,  and  the  Agagite  was  hanged  upon  the  gal- 
lows. 

But  we  must  not  anticipate.  Mortified  as  he 
was,  Haman  had  to  carry  out  the  royal  mandate. 
There  was  no  evading  that;  and  so  he  went,  with 
the  best  face  he  could,  and  led  Mordecai  through 
the  city,  while  the  people  wondered  to  see  "  the 
Jews'  enemy"  in  the  place  of  lackey  to  a  Jew. 

When  the  procession  was  over,  Mordecai,  lik'e 
the  faithful  servant  that  he  was,  went  back  to  his 
post  at  the  King's  gate.  His  head  had  not  been 
turned  by  the  brief  honor,  nor  his  heart  uplifted  by 
the  short-lived  glory,  for  he  was  well  ballasted,  and 
his  people  were  not  yet  delivered.      But  Haman 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  205 

went  to  his  house  "  in  mourning  and  with  his  head 
covered."  He  could  not  look  upon  any  one  with- 
out shame,  and  he  did  not  want  any  one  to  see  that 
shame ,  so  he  covered  his  head  to  conceal  his  mor- 
tification. When  he  reached  his  house  he  sent  for 
his  wise  men — Magi,  perhaps — and  his  wife,  and  told 
them  all  that  had  happened  ^  but  they  were  "  mis- 
erable comforters,"  for  all  they  did  was  to  make 
articulate  and  audible  the  unuttered  forebodings  of 
his  own  guilty  heart.  They  said  :  "  If  Mordecai  be 
of  the  seed  of  the  Jews,  before  whom  thou  hast  be- 
gun to  fall,  thou  shalt  not  prevail  against  him,  but 
shalt  surely  fall  before  him."  Wise  men,  indeed ! 
But  why  did  not  Haman  consult  them  sooner  ?  Or 
why,  if  he  so  consulted  them,  did  they  not  give  him 
this  opinion  of  the  Jews  before  ?  We  cannot  tell ; 
but  now,  at  least,  they  are  reminded  by  the  strange 
things  that  had  happened  to  Mordecai,  that  the 
Jews  as  a  nation  had  a  peculiar  history,  and  the 
fact  that  they  still  existed,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts 
which  men  had  put  forth  for  their  destruction,  had, 
when  taken  in  connection  with  Mordecai's  triumph, 
convinced  them  that  they  were,  so  to  say,  "  a  people 
of  destiny,"  and  that  those  who  assailed  them  would 
be  ultimately  overthrown.  If  such  was  their  view 
of  the  situation,  they  were  perfectly  correct  —  but 
alas !  the  warning  came  too  late  to  be  of  service — 
for  it  was  like  Daniel's  reading  of  the  handwriting 
on  the  wall,  and  it  sent  Haman  away  anything  but 
"merrily"  to  Esther's  banquet. 


2o6  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

Now,  in  turning  from  this  highly-dramatic  story 
to  seek  for  its  practical  lessons,  we  may  say  that  we 
shall  miss  the  great  purpose  for  which  it  is  here 
told  if  we  fail  to  see  in  it  an  illustration  of  the 
working  of  God's  providence.  Note,  in  the  first 
place,  the  minute  universality  of  God's  supervision 
and  control.  The  notion  of  many  is  that  Provi- 
dence is  concerned  only  with  great  matters.  But 
those  who  so  believe  forget  that  perfection  in  any- 
thing cannot  be  secured  without  attention  to  de- 
tails ;  and  that  great  issues  often  hinge  on  appar- 
ently very  trifling  affairs ;  and  such  a  history  as  this 
will  show  how  true  both  these  considerations  are. 
A  sleepless  night  is  in  itself  no  very  important 
thing,  but  if,  in  the  history  of  Xerxes,  this  wake- 
fulness had  come  either  the  night  before  or  the 
night  after,  it  would  not  have  contributed,  as  it  so 
apparently  does,  to  the  deliverance  of  Mordecai 
and  the  Jews  from  the  plot  of  Haman.  Again,  it  is 
a  matter  of  little  moment  what  a  man  shall  do  to 
fill  in  the  hours  of  sleeplessness  and  keep  himself 
from  ennui;  but  if  Xerxes  had  adopted  any  other 
plan  than  that  which  he  followed,  or  if  the  attend- 
ant had  chosen  to  read  from  any  other  section  of 
the  chronicles  of  the  kingdom  than  that  which  he 
selected,  there  would  have  been  nothing  to  recall 
Mordecai's  services  to  the  King's  remembrance, 
and  so  there  would  have  been  no  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  his  granting  the  request  of  Haman  for  his 
execution.     Once  more:  if  Haman  had  not  come 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  207 

to  the  court  at  the  time  he  did,  and  been  introduced 
into  the  presence  at  the  precise  moment  when  the 
mind  of  the  King  was  pondering  the  question  what 
honor  should  be  conferred  on  Mordecai,  then  the 
first  word  might  have  been  his,  and  so  the  fiat  might 
have  gone  out  for  the  consigning  of  Mordecai  to  the 
gallows,  even  at  the  moment  when  the  monarch  was 
thinking  about  doing  him  honor.  For  it  is  not 
likely  that  Haman  would  have  named  his  victim, 
any  more  than  he  had  named  the  Jews  when  he 
procured  the  decree  for  their  destruction ;  and  so 
the  order  might  have  gone,  and  might  have  been  so 
speedily  carried  out  that  the  mischief  would  have 
been  irreparable.  Here,  then,  are  four  things,  each 
of  which  is,  in  itself,  almost  infinitesimal  to  us — how 
much  more  to  Him  who  is  Himself  the  Infinite ! 
— and  yet,  any  one  of  them  being  different,  the  re- 
sult could  not  have  been  obtained.  But  by  the 
concurrence  of  them  all  the  desired  object  was  se- 
cured. Now,  this  history  is  not  exceptional  in.  any 
respect.  It  certainly  is  not  exceptional  in  this  par- 
ticular. You  see  the  same  supervision  of  the  most 
apparently  trifling  things  by  God  in  the  biography 
of  Joseph,  and  there  are  many  striking  illustrations 
of  it  in  secular  history.  A  change  of  wind  from 
west  to  east  is  not  a  great  matter,  and  yet  on  such 
a  change  as  that  at  a  particular  hour  of  a  particular 
day,  the  history  of  Great  Britain  turned ;  for  there- 
by the  fleet  of  William  of  Orange  was  wafted  to 
Torbay,  while  that  of  James  II.  was  by  the  same 


208  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

means  prevented  from  putting  out  to  sea  to  inter- 
cept its  progress.  Nay,  take  any  critical  event, 
either  in  the  history  of  a  nation  or  in  the  life  of  an 
individual,  and  you  will  discover  that  it  has  depend- 
ed on  the  "concurrence  and  co-operation  of  many 
smaller  things,  each  of  which  might,  humanly  speak- 
ing, have  been  different,  and  the  absence  of  any 
one  of  which  would  have  made  a  failure  out  of  what 
was  truly  a  success.  We  understand  therefore  now, 
perhaps,  a  little  better  what  the  Saviour  meant  when 
he  said  :  ''The  very  hairs  of  your  head  are  all  num- 
bered ;"  and  again,  "  A  sparrow  cannot  fall  on  the 
ground  without  your  Father ;  be  of  good  cheer,  ye 
are  of  more  value  than  many  sparrows." 

But  note  in  the  second  place  that  we  have  here 
no  interference  with  the  operation  of  the  laws  of 
nature,  and  no  infringement  of  the  liberty  of  moral 
agents.  We  have  no  record  of  any  miracle  in  this 
case.  There  is  nothing  supernatural  in  a  man's 
having  a  sleepless  night,  or  in  his  fixing  on  a  cer- 
tain part  of  his  chronicles  to  read,  or  in  the  coming 
in  of  another  person  upon  him  at  a  particular  junc- 
ture; and  no  single  one  of  the  actors  in  the  case 
was  working  under  compulsion — each  one  knew  at 
the  moment  that  he  was  following  his  own  bent. 
We  know  this  was  so,  for  we  have  had  parallel 
things  in  our  own  experience.  Now,  it  was  through 
these,  and  therefore  through  ordinary  operations  of 
ordinary  laws,  and  through  the  free  actions  of  free 
agents,  that  all  this  was  secured.     But  it  was  not 


ESTHER    THE    QUEEN.  209 

less  the  work  of  God,  or  less  glorifying  to  God,  be- 
cause of  that.  I  will  not  undertake  to  make  clear 
to  you  how  God  thus  works  through  the  volitions  of 
moral  agents,  and  through  the  ordinary  laws  of  nat- 
ure, without  interfering  with  either;  but  that  He 
does  so  I  take  to  be  not  only  the  great  revelation 
of  this  Book  of  Esther,  but  also  the  doctrine  of  the 
Scriptures  generally ;  and  I  am  sure  that  it  is  con- 
firmed alike  by  observation  and  experience.  Now 
this  non-miraculous  providence,  if  I  may  so  call  it, 
is  a  greater  and  grander  and  more  glorious  achiev- 
ment  of  God's  than  it  would  have  been  if  the  same 
results  had  been  accomplished  through  the  direct 
forth-putting  of  His  own  omnipotence.  A  miracle 
is  a  work  of  power.  It  is  done  and  done  with. 
But  such  an  operation  as  we  have  been  tracing 
here  to-night  required  something  more  than  power 
for  the  carrying  of  it  through.  There  was  a  deliv- 
erance wrought  out  for  the  Hebrews  in  their  early 
history  by  God,  but  that,  as  we  know,  was  effected 
mainly  by  miracle,  and  it  was  undoubtedly  glorious. 
This  deliverance  of  the  nation  in  their  later  history, 
however,  was  equally  wrought  out  by  God,  but  it 
was  not  effected  by  miracle,  and  just  for  that  reason 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  it  was  the  more  glorious 
of  the  two.  It  required — I  may  say  it  reverently — 
more  from  God  than  the  other.  It  showed  more  of 
God  than  the  other,  and,  in  particular,  it  gives  us 
more  of  an  explanation  of  our  own  daily  life  than 
the  other.     For  it  tells  us  that  just  as  God  was  in 


2IO  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

and  over  all  these  little  matters  here,  so  He  is  in  and 
over  all  the  details  of  our  common  experience ;  and 
he  who  has  the  eye  to  perceive  it  will  discover  in 
our  ordinary  existence  a  continuous  working  of  God 
through  the  laws  of  nature  and  the  actions  of  men, 
that  is  greater  than  the  grandest  miracle  which  was 
wrought  through  Moses.  "  This  is  indeed  the  great 
miracle  of  Providence,  that  no  miracles  are  needed 
for  the  accomplishment  of  its  purposes."  I  do  not 
depreciate  the  supernatural ;  I  believe  in  the  mira- 
cles, and  I  believe,  too,  that  they  were  meant  for  a 
good  and  wise  purpose,  but  greater  than  all  mira- 
cles to  me  is  that  providence  of  God  which,  through 
ordinary  laws  in  nature  and  common  volitions  of 
men,  works  out  its  purposes  from  hour  to  hour,  and 
from  day  to  day,  and  from  year  to  year,  through  the 
ages,  and  which  at  length  will  be  seen  and  acknowl- 
edged by  all  to  be  bright  with  glory  and  benign 
with  blessing. 

Now,  if  what  I  have  advanced  on  this  important 
matter  be  true,  it  may  cast  some  light  on  the  way 
in  which  God  answers  His  people's  prayers.  There 
are  those  who  affirm  that  to  ask  God  to  confer  on 
us  a  physical  blessing  is  to  ask  Him  to  work  a  mir- 
acle in  our  behalf.  Even  if  I  believed  that,  I  would 
still  ask  Him  for  what  I  need,  because  he  has  com- 
manded me  to  do  so,  and  I  would  trustfully  leave 
the  method  of  His  answer  in  His  own  hands. 
But  I  do  not  believe  that  to  ask  a  physical  blessing 
from  God  is  to  ask  Him  to  work  a  miracle  in  our 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  211 

behalf,  and  such  a  history  as  this  of  Esther  confirms 
me  in  that  non-belief.  INIordecai  and  Esther  ap- 
pealed, in  their  own  fashion  of  fasting,  to  God  for 
help,  and  He  did  help  them,  but  He  helped  them 
without  miracle.  He  helped  them  through  the  or- 
dinary workings  of  the  laws  of  nature,  and  through 
perfectly  natural  and  free  volitions  and  actions  of 
men.  And  thus  I  believe  He  will  answer  our 
prayers  when  we  ask  for  such  temporal  things  as  He 
sees  to  be  for  our  good.  How  He  can  do  so  I  can- 
not explain ;  but  to  say  that  He  cannot  do  so  is  to 
arrogate  to  ourselves  omniscience ,  for  if  there  be 
one  thing  that  we  do  not  know  it  may  be  that  very 
thing.  Nay,  more :  to  say  that  He  cannot  do  so  is 
to  repudiate  the  teaching  of  this  Book,  and  to  shut 
our  eyes  to  the  meaning  of  our  own  lives. 

Then,  finally,  here,  if  what  I  have  advanced  in 
this  connection  be  correct,  it  may  tend  to  reconcile 
us  to  the  minor  inconveniences  that  come  upon  us 
in  life.  What  an  amount  of  fretting  we  do  over 
little  things !  We  go  off  our  sleep,  or  we  miss  a 
train,  or  we  have  to  wait  for  some  tedious  hours  at  a 
railroad  station,  or  we  approach  the  harbor  in  a  fog 
and  have  to  lie  outside  for  a  long  while,  so  near  our 
homes  and  yet  so  far  from  them,  or 'a  friend  disap- 
points us  and  our  plans  are  deranged.  But  why 
need  I  go  on  ?  Even  as  I  am  passing  from  one  to 
another  you  are  yourselves  recalling  some  of  the 
unpleasantnesses  of  last  week  and  your  impatience 
under  them.     Yet  why  should  we  be  impatient  if  it 


212  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

be  true  that  even  these  little  things  are  taken  cog- 
nizance of  by  God,  and  woven  by  Him  for  His 
glory  and  our  good  into  the  fabric  of  our  lives? 
My  friends,  if,  when  we  are  disposed  to  be  irritable 
over  such  tiny  inconveniences,  we  could  but  pause 
a  moment  and  say  within  ourselves,  "  This  is  all  in 
the  plan  of  God  concerning  us,"  we  should  at  once 
have  self-control.  We  might  see,  too,  if  we  cared  to 
look  for  it,  some  good  purpose  for  which  it  was 
sent;  and  even  if  we  failed  to  note  d^ny _objective  re- 
sult that  was  thereby  effected,  we  should  still  have 
to  be  grateful  for  the  trustful  patience  which  it  fos- 
tered within  ourselves. 

So  much  time  has  been  taken  up  by  me  in  the 
unfolding  of  the  Providence  of  God,  as  illustrated 
by  this  narrative,  that  I  shall  linger  now  only  to 
mention,  and  that  but  barely,  two  other  practical 
lessons.  First  of  all,  think  how  valuable  God's 
commonest  gifts  are.  The  proverb  says  that  we 
never  know  the  worth  of  the  well  until  it  is  dry; 
and  I  fear  that  the  same  thing  is  true  of  more  bless- 
ings than  water.  We  know  what  health  means, 
truly,  only  when  we  have  lost  it ,  and  I  fear  that  we 
must  also  say  that  we  never  fully  realize  what  sleep 
is  until  we  find  it  impossible  for  us  to  fall  asleep. 
Now,  as  in  this  age  of  mental  overwork,  this  very 
sleeplessness  has  become  a  disease  (called  by  the 
learned  name  insomnia)  ;  it  may  not  be  out  of  place 
for  me  to  utter  a  warning  against  those  things  which 
tend  to  produce  it,  for  when   it  once  comes  it  is 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  213 

hard  indeed  to  drive  it  away  and  get  back  again  to 
the  repose  of  childhood.  Keep  your  conscience 
clean,  that  nothing  of  guilt  may  put  thorns  into  your 
pillow.  Take  no  ambitious  schemes  with  you  to 
your  couch,  lest  you  should  be  constrained  to  lie 
awake  in  the  attempt  to  work  them  out.  Finish 
each  day's  business  in  its  own  day,  that  there  may 
be  no  nervous  anxiety  in  your  mind  about  the  mor- 
row. Do  not  work,  as  a  rule,  far  into  the  night. 
Watch  over  your  table,  and  take  nothing  there  that 
will  make  you  restless.  Above  everything  else,  let 
Paul's  prescription  be  your  only  anodyne,  for  all 
others  are  to  be  shunned  as  you  would  the  plague : 
"  Be  worried  about  nothing,  but  in  everything,  by 
prayer  and  supplication,  with  thanksgiving,  make 
your  requests  known  unto  God,  and  the  peace  of 
God  will  keep  your  hearts  and  minds  by  Christ 
Jesus."  Then  when  you  find  yourself  getting  into 
a  habit  of  awaking  at  a  certain  time  in  the  early 
morning  and  lying  awake  for  hours  in  the  darkness, 
realize  that  Nature  is  ringing  for  you  an  alarm-bell, 
and  stop  right  off,  no  matter  at  what  cost.  You 
have  been  working  or  living  in  some  respects  un- 
wisely. Make  it  your  business  to  find  out  what  that 
respect  is,  and,  remorselessly,  alter  your  course ; 
for  sleeplessness  is  nothing  else  than  the  protest 
of  your  constitution  against  some  outrage  which 
you  have  done  to  it.  Think  more  of  this  com- 
mon blessing  of  sleep,  and  see  in  that  one  of 
the   richest  tokens  of  the  divine  scoodness  which 


214  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

is  not   to  be   trifled  with,  but  to   be  valued  and 
enjoyed. 

And  this  leads  me,  by  a  very  natural  transition,  to 
ask  whether  you  have  ever  reviewed  your  obligations 
to  God  for  all  that  He  has  done  for  you  ?  Xerxes 
utilized  his  sleepless  hours  in  discovering  wherein 
he  had  failed  to  meet  his  obligations  to  his  benefac- 
tors. But  what  a  benefactor  you  have  had  in  God  ! 
Not  only  has  He  given  you  those  common  and  or- 
dinary blessings  to  which  I  have  referred,  but  you 
have  been  the  wards  of  His  constant  protection.  He 
has  given  you  all  you  have  enjoyed.  And  when  not 
your  life  merely,  but  your  soul,  was  endangered,  and 
your  sin  was  calling  for  condign  punishment  on  your 
head.  He  gave  His  only  Son  for  your  salvation. 
Xerxes's  indebtedness  to  Mordecai  was  nothing  in 
comparison  to  your  obligation  to  Jehovah.  Now 
let  me  ask,  what  have  you  done  to  Him  for  that  ? 
Will  you  allow  yourselves  to  be  outdone  in  grati- 
tude by  a  heathen  monarch,  and  that  such  a  mon- 
arch as  we  know  Xerxes  to  have  been  ?  Surely,  if  he 
felt  that  some  recognition  was  due  to  Mordecai  for 
delivering  him  from  the  hands  of  the  assassin,  you 
ought  to  honor  God  with  the  service  of  your  whole 
lives  for  sending  His  Son  into  the  world  for  your 
salvation.  Now  the  question  I  want  you  at  this 
moment  to  face,  and  which  you  do  not  need  to  put 
off  until  you  have  a  sleepless  night,  is  this :  "  How 
much  owest  thou  to  thy  God  ?"  and  how  wilt  thou 
meet  that  obligation  ?    Here  is  Paul's  answer  :  "Ye 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  215 

are  bought  with  a  price :  therefore  glorify  God  in 
your  body,  and  in  your  spirit,  which  are  God's."  No 
mere  temporary  enthronement  of  Him  for  a  day,  or 
for  a  few  hours  of  a  day,  will  suffice.  No  mere  giv- 
ing Him  the  form  of  royalty  over  you  for  a  little 
season  will  meet  the  case.  "  I  beseech  you  there- 
fore, by  the  mercies  of  God,  that  you  present  yoUr 
bodies,  a  living  sacrifice,  holy,  acceptable  to  God, 
which  is  your  reasonable  service."  Thus  only  can 
you  honor  God  for  all  His  beneficence  and  grace  to 
you. 


vni. 

RETRIBUTION. 
Esther  VII.,  i— VIII.,  2. 

If  the  news  of  the  morning  which  had  seen  Alor- 
decai  led  in  triumph  through  the  streets  of  Shushan, 
with  Haman  as  his  lackey,  found  their  way  into  the 
royal  harem,  as  they  probably  did,  they  would  so 
gladden  the  heart  of  Esther  as  to  send  her  to  the 
preparation  of  her  banquet  with  good  hope  of  her 
ultimate  success  in  her  intercession  for  her  people. 
The  elevation  of  her  cousin,  brief  though  it  was, 
would  seem  to  her  the  prophecy  of  the  deliverance 
of  those  who  had  been  doomed  to  destruction  for 
his  sake ;  and  though  there  would  still  be  some 


2l6  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN, 

misgivings  in  her  soul,  she  would  look  forward  to 
the  presentation  of  her  request  with  more  calmness 
than  before,  and  that,  of  itself,  would  help  to  make 
it  effectual. 

With  Haman,  however,  it  would  be  far  otherwise. 
The  mortification  which  he  had  endured  in  being 
compelled  to  play  the  herald  in  Mordecai's  proces- 
sion, and  the  interpretation  given  to  the  Jew's  ex- 
altation by  his  chosen  wise  men,  must  have  greatly 
damped  his  spirits,  so  that  he  was  in  no  haste  to 
repair  again  to  the  palace.  Not  now  does  he  con- 
gratulate himself  that  he  alone  of  all  the  subjects 
of  the  King  has  been  honored  with  an  invitation 
for  the  second  time  to  banquet  with  the  Queen. 
Everything  seemed  to  be  going  against  him,  and  it 
is  with  dark  forebodings  of  some  inexplicable  ca- 
lamity that  he  now  looks  forward  to  that  which 
aforetime  he  had  counted  an  honor.  Willingly,  in- 
deed, would  he  have  remained  at  home,  and  when 
Harbonah  came  to  summon  him  to  the  feast  he 
went  with  a  dull  and  heavy  heart.  Zeresh  told 
him,  only  yesterday,  to  get  rid  of  Mordecai,  and 
then  go  "  merrily  "  to  the  banquet ;  but  now  that 
Mordecai  had  been  so  honored  by  the  monarch,  he 
goes  with  ill-concealed  misery  and  reluctance  to  the 
table  of  Esther.  How  great  a  change  a  few  hours 
may  make  in  the  outlook  of  a  man !  and  how  uni- 
versally appropriate  the  proverb  is,  "  Boast  not  thy- 
self of  to-morrow,  for  thou  knowest  not  what  a  day 
may  bring  forth !" 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN,  217 

In  the  course  of  the  feast  Xerxes,  having  the 
conviction  that  Esther's  request  must  be  one  of 
some  importance,  renewed  his  kind  assurance  even 
more  graciously  than  before,  saying :  "  What  is  thy 
petition,  Queen  Esther?  and  it  shall  be  granted 
thee  :  and  what  is  thy  request  ?  and  it  shall  be  per- 
formed, even  to  the  half  of  the  kingdom."  And 
now  that  the  critical  moment  has  come  she  meets 
it  nobly.  Without  any  fainting  or  feebleness,  with 
calm  dignity  and  majestic  soberness,  she  makes 
reply :  "  If  I  have  found  favor  in  thy  sight,  O  King, 
and  if  it  please  the  King,  let  my  life  be  given  me 
at  my  petition,  and  my  people  at  my  request.  For 
we  are  sold,  I  and  my  people,  to  be  destroyed,  to 
be  slain,  and  to  perish.  But  if  we  had  been  sold  for 
bondmen  and  bondwomen,  I  had  held  my  tongue, 
although  the  enemy  could  not  countervail  the  King's 
damage."  Mark  how  wise  and  how  strong  this 
presentation  of  the  case  is.  She  is  not  so  excited 
as  to  forget  the  etiquette  of  the  occasion.  As  Paul 
had  words  of  courtesy  for  the  most  noble  Festus 
and  for  King  Agrippa,  so  here  she  begins  her  ap- 
peal with  the  politeness  of  a  subject,  "If  I  have 
found  favor  in  thy  sight;"  and,  "if  it  please  the 
King."  Then,  in  the  assured  possession  of  the 
monarch's  love,  she  puts  herself  in  the  foreground 
as  one  who  had  been  doomed  to  death — "Let  my 
life  be  given  me  at  my  petition."  Yet  she  will  not 
be  separated  from  her  kinsmen  in  her  plea,  any 
more  than  she  would  have  been  in  their  fate;  and 


2l8  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

SO  she  includes  them  with  her  thus  :  "  And  my  peo- 
ple at  my  request."  And  when  she  perceives  the 
look  of  amazement  on  the  countenance  of  Xerxes 
at  the  very  idea  of  any  one  having  presumed  to 
condemn  her  to  death,  she  proceeds  to  use  language 
which  would  at  once  enlighten  him  as  to  her  mean- 
ing :  *'  For,"  she  adds,  "  we  are  sold,  I  and  my  peo- 
ple," alluding  thus  in  the  most  delicate  way  to  the 
fact  that  Haman  had  covenanted  to  give  him  ten 
thousand  talents  of  silver  for  permission  to  destroy 
the  Jews.  She  did  not  say  that  the  King  himself 
had  sold  them,  but  no  doubt  his  own  conscience 
said  that  for  her,  "  We  are  sold,  I  and  my  people," 
"  to  be  destroyed,  to  be  slain,  and  to  perish." 
These  are  the  very  words  of  the  hated  edict,  which 
had  burned  themselves  indelibly  upon  her  brain, 
and  which  accounted  for  the  liberty  which  she  had 
taken  in  bringing  the  matter  before  him.  "For 
if  we  had  been  sold  for  bondmen  and  bondwomen, 
I  would  have  held  my  tongue  " — since,  in  that  case, 
there  would  have  been  a  possibility  of  at  least 
partial  remedy  afterwards,  and  when  righteousness 
began  again  to  prevail  with  him  they  might  be 
redeemed.  But  if  they  were  put  to  death,  the  evil 
to  the  Jews  would  be  irreparable ;  and  it  would  be 
impossible  for  any  one  to  make  adequate  compen- 
sation to  the  King  for  the  loss  which  he  would 
sustain  in  the  destruction  of  so  many  thousands 
of  his  most  peaceable,  most  industrious,  and  most 
prosperous  subjects.      There   is  some  little   diffi- 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  219 

culty  in  giving  the  exact  sense  of  these  last  words  : 
"  Although  the  enemy  could  not  countervail  the 
King's  damage."  Literally  translated  they  read 
thus :  "  Although  the  enemy  is  not  equal  to  the 
King's  hurt ;"  and  some  would  paraphrase  it  as 
follows  :  *'  For  it  is  not  worth  the  King's  while  to 
trouble  himself  about  the  adversary."  But  the  in- 
terpretation which  we  have  given  seems  to  us  more 
in  harmony  with  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case. 
The  wholesale  destruction  of  a  people,  or  their  ex- 
pulsion from  a  kingdom,  merely  on  grounds  of  race 
or  religion,  inflicts  a  loss  upon  those  who  are  guilty 
of  it  which  nothing  can  repair.  It  would  have  been 
well  if  there  had  been  some  one  to  enforce  that 
truth  upon  the  rulers  of  France  when  they  planned 
and  carried  through  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew and  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes ; 
for  when  the  Huguenots  were  banished  from  that 
land  they  took  with  them  the  mechanical  and  man- 
ufacturing enterprise  of  the  nation,  and  enriched 
other  countries  at  an  expense  to  France  which 
has  not  yet  been  made  up.  All  such  Haman-like 
deeds  are  not  merely  crimes  but  blunders  ;  infringe- 
ments of  the  laws  of  political  economy  as  well  as 
violations  of  the  sacred  principles  of  liberty,  and 
the  damage  resulting  from  them  cannot  be  counter- 
vailed. 

Esther's  words,  though  they  did  not  name  any 
one  directly,  must  have  made  it  clear  to  Xerxes 
that  she  referred  to  the  Jews ;  that  she  was  herself 


220  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

a  Jewess ;  and  that  Haman,  the  author  of  the  de- 
cree which  she  had  quoted,  was  the  adversary  whom 
she  feared.  But  though  he  probably  did  not  need 
her  word  to  assure  him  that  it  was  so,  he  asked  de- 
finitely who  it  was  that  she  accused.  "  Who  is  he, 
and  where  is  he,  that  durst  presume  in  his  heart  to 
do  so?"  And  to  that  inquiry  Esther  answered, 
pointing,  as  she  spoke,  to  the  pale  and  crouching 
coward  at  the  table  with  them,  "  The  man,  adver- 
sary and  enemy,  is  Haman  :  the  wretch,  this  one." 
Such  is  the  collocation  of  the  words  in  the  original, 
and  the  broken  energy  by  which  they  are  character- 
ized is  an  indication  of  the  depth  and  long  pent-up 
strength  of  the  emotion  with  which  they  were  ex- 
pressed ;  while  the  emphatic  "this  one"  at  the  close 
must  have  pierced  through  Haman  like  a  drawn 
sword,  and  been  to  him  very  much  what  Nathan's 
"Thou  art  the  man  !"  was  to  Israel's  King. 

"  Then  Haman  was  afraid ;"  yes,  and  he  had  good 
reason  for  being  so,  for  the  King,  to  show  that  there 
was  no  hope  of  the  success  of  any  appeal  to  him, 
rose  and  went  out  into  the  gardens.  That,  as  he  well 
knew,  was  equivalent  to  his  condemnation,  and  now 
his  only  resource  was  to  get  Esther  to  intercede  for 
him.  But  though  he  knelt  before  her — Jewess  as 
she  was — she  was  inexorable,  and  the  King,  coming 
in  at  the  moment,  taunted  him  with  rudeness  to  the 
Queen — not  because  he  believed  in  the  accusation 
which  his  words  implied,  but  because  "he  meant  to 
tax  him  with  a  further  offence  in  not  sufficiently  re- 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  221 

specting  the  person  of  the  Queen."  Then  he  gave 
command,  or  the  word  out  of  his  mouth,  for  his  ex- 
ecution, and  the  attendant  chamberlains  covered 
his  face  and  took  him  away.  As  they  were  going, 
Harbonah,.who  had  been  to  Haman's  house  a  short 
while  before  to  fetch  him  to  the  banquet,  and  had 
asked  for  whom  the  gallows  w^as  intended  which  he 
saw  there  in  the  court,  said  very  suggestively  to  the 
King :  "  Behold  also  the  gallows-,  fifty  cubits  high, 
which  Haman  had  made  for  Mordecai,  who  had 
spoken  good  for  the  King,  standeth  in  the  house  of 
Haman;"  and  the, immediate  answer  was,  "Hang 
him  thereon."  When  a  great  man  is  going  down 
the  meanest  will  give  him  a  push,  and  if  Haman 
heard  Harbonah's  words  he  might  have  moral- 
ized a  little  on  the  question  whether  Harbonah's 
obeisance  to  him  in  the  gate  had  been  of  any  more 
value  than  Mordecai's  refusal  to  do  him  homage. 
For  Harbonah's  supple  genuflection  had  been  noth- 
ing better  than  a  "  lively  sense  of  favors  to  come," 
and  now  that  he  had  gotten  all  that  Haman  had  to 
give,  he  turned,  like  the  time-server  that  he  was, 
to  worship  the  rising  sun,  even  Mordecai,  "  who 
had  spoken  good  for  the  King."  So,  as  Mordecai 
got  the  honor  which  Haman  planned  for  himself, 
Haman  was  hanged  on  the  gallows  which  he  had 
erected  for  Mordecai ;  and  as  his  house  was  confis- 
cated to  the  King,  Xerxes  made  it  over  as  a  gift  to 
Esther,  who  in  her  turn  gave  it  to  Mordecai,  whom 
now  she  introduced  to  the  monarch,  telling  him  of 


222  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

his  relationship  to  her,  and  of  all  that  he  had  been 
to  her  and  had  done  for  her  in  the  days  of  her  or- 
phanhood. The  result  was  that  the  ring  of  office 
which  he  had  taken  from  Haman  was  bestowed  on 
Mordecai,  who  went  to  his  couch  that  night  the 
second  in  the  Empire.  It  had  been  an  eventful  day, 
fraught  with  terrible  retribution  to  the  unscrupulous 
Haman,  and  full  of  mercy  to  the  captive  Jews.  Let 
us  see  what  we  can  take  out  of  its  incidents  of 
wisdom  and  of  warning  for  the  regulation  of  our 
daily  lives.  And,  in  the  first  place,  we  may  surely 
be  stimulated  to  gratitude  for  the  fact  that  we  live 
under  happier  circumstances  than  those  which  are 
here  described.  What  a  tyranny  that  of  Xerxes's 
was !  That  he  should  have  had  it  in  his  power, 
from  favoritism,  or  caprice,  or  for  the  sake  of  a 
bribe,  to  order  the  destruction  of  thousands  of  his 
subjects  by  one  fell  decree,  was  horrible  in  the  ex- 
treme ;  and  though  we  can  have  but  little  sympathy 
with  the  victim  in  this  case,  it  is  no  less  appalling 
that  he  should  have  been  able,  without  any  trial  or 
even  form  of  justice,  to  order  a  man  to  be  immedi- 
ately executed.  Where,  in  such  a  case,  was  the 
security  for  life  or  property  among  the  people  ? 
And  is  it  wonderful  that  when  an  autocrat  of  this 
sort  has  exhausted  the  patience  of  a  long-suffering 
people  by  his  intolerant  and  intolerable  cruelties, 
they  should  seek  to  rectify  one  evil  by  the  commis- 
sion of  another,  and  endeavor  to  remove  him  by 
assassination  ?    We  do  not,  of  course,  in  thus  speak- 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  223 

ing,  extenuate  the  guilt  of  such  an  act,  but  we  see 
how  easily  the  commission  of  it  can  be  explained 
in  such  circumstances.  And  we  see,  too,  how  grate- 
ful we  ought  to  be  that  among  us  the  law  is  su- 
preme ;  that  every  one  is  equal  before  the  law ;  and 
that  the  poorest  among  us  has  a  right  to  a  fair  and 
open  trial  before  he  is  visited  with  any  sort  of  pun- 
ishment. 

And  yet,  though  this  is  the  theory  among  us,  we 
must  not  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  it  is  not 
in  all  cases  carried  out  with  absolute  impartiali- 
ty. Sometimes  there  is  a  miscarriage  of  justice 
which,  to  say  the  least,  bears  the  appearance  of  be- 
ing due  to  the  political  influence  or  pecuniary  gifts 
of  the  accused  or  of  his  friends ;  while  occasionally 
among  the  people  themselves  there  is  an  outbreak 
of  blind  and  bloody  cruelty  against  those  of  other 
races  which  is  worse  than  this  plot  of  Haman's 
against  the  Jews,  because  it  issues  no  decree  and 
gives  no  warning  to  its  victims.  We  are  amazed  at 
the  old  Empires  of  Europe,  at  this  time  of  the  day, 
expelling  the  Jews  from  their  territories,  and  we  ex- 
claim against  the  tyranny  of  the  Emperors  and  their 
advisers.  But  yet,  within  our  own  borders,  the 
Chinese  are  abused  in  the  most  shameful  manner, 
and  there  are  those  who  would  command  them 
forthwith  to  depart  out  of  our  coasts.  No  doubt  it 
is  said  that  they  are  very  undesirable  people  to 
have  among  us,  and  that  for  our  own  safety  we 
should   prevent   them    landing   upon   our   shores. 


224  ESTHER    THE    QUEEN. 

Well,  that  is  a  new  principle  for  Americans  to  in- 
sist upon.  It  has  been  our  boast  in  the  past  that 
we  have  invited  the  poor  and  the  oppressed  of  all 
nationalities  to  come  and  enjoy  with  us  the  bless- 
ings of  liberty.  But  if  we  are  now  to  begin  upon 
another  system,  then  let  us  carry  it  through.  Are 
all  the  European  immigrants  that  come  hither  de- 
sirable people  to  have  among  us  ?  By  what  test 
shall  we  secure  that  none  but  the  right  sort  of  im- 
migrants shall  be  admitted  to  our  land?  And  if 
the  wrong  sort  should  be  admitted,  on  what  ground 
can  we  vindicate,  before  either  God  or  man,  their 
wholesale  massacre  in  the  midst  of  us?  Whether 
is  the  coming  of  the  Chinese  among  us  or  the  ex- 
istence of  Mormonism  in  the  country  the  greater 
danger  to  the  State  ?  And  so  long  as  we  permit 
hundreds  of  Mormons  to  come  among  us  every  year, 
to  be  subject  like  "dumb,  driven  cattle  "to  the  will 
of  an  autocracy  that  is  set  up  here  —  an  itnpenmn 
in  repiiblica  —  more  arbitrary  and  tyrannical  than 
this  of  Xerxes,  is  it  not  ridiculous  to  make  all  this 
ado  about  a  few  Chinese  ?  Then  there  is  the  treat- 
ment to  which,  in  some  districts,  the  negroes  are 
subjected.  True,  they  have  been  emancipated  ; 
they  are  being  educated,  and  they  are  enfranchised 
as  citizens  of  the  Republic.  But  to  what  advan- 
tage enfranchised  if  they  are  shot  down  when  they 
come  to  exercise  their  right  at  the  ballot-box  ?  I 
acknowledge  that  the  problem  of  race  as  presented 
by  the  presence  among  us  of  seven  millions  of  col- 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  22$ 

ored  people  is  a  very  hard  one  ;  but  to  make  them 
voters  and  then  to  shoot  them  for  voting  is  most 
certainly  not  the  way  to  solve  it.  That  not  only 
murders  them,  but  it  murders  the  law ;  and  bad  as 
the  former  is,  the  latter  is,  I  fear,  still  worse.  If, 
therefore,  we  have  any  gratitude  for  our  privileges, 
we  must  see  to  it  that  they  be  preserved,  and  must 
insist  that  the  supremacy  of  the  law  shall  be  main- 
tained, and  that  no  one  shall  be  condemned  or  in- 
terfered with  until  he  has  had  a  fair  and  impartial 
trial.  It  is  a  great  crime  to  kill — as  twice  within 
this  generation  we  have  seen  killed  —  the  highest 
executive  officer  in  the  land,  but  it  is  a  greater 
crime  even  than  that  to  murder  the  law,  and  we 
should  see  to  it  that  those  who  are  guilty  of  that 
are  made  by  the  law  to  suffer  the  penalty  of  their 
crime. 

In  the  second  place,  let  us  learn  that  when  we 
have  an  accusation  to  make  against  any  one,  we 
should  make  it  in  his  presence.  Haman  imagined 
that  his  invitation  to  Esther's  banquet  was  simply 
and  only  an  honor  to  himself,  but  in  the  end  he 
discovered  that  he  was  there  to  meet  an  accusation 
which  she  intended  to  bring  against  him.  If  he 
had  anything  to  say  for  himself,  then  was  the  time 
and  there  was  the  place  to  say  it;  but  the  confusion 
that  covered  him,  and  the  cowardice  that  character- 
ized him,  were  abundant  indications  of  his  guilt,  and 
the  King  himself,  who  had  been,  to  his  own  shame, 
an  unconscious  particeps   cfiminis,  was   a  witness 

lO* 


226  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

to  the  truth  of  what  Esther  had  advanced.  Now, 
in  all  fairness  even  to  one  who,  as  we  think,  has 
deeply  wronged  us,  we  should  accuse  him  to  his 
face  and  not  behind  his  back.  Let  us  say  nothing 
of  a  man  in  his  absence  that  we  would  not  say  in 
his  presence.  And  if  one  is  to  be  condemned,  let 
it  not  be  until  he  has  first  been  brought  face  to  face 
with  his  accuser. 

In  the  third  place,  let  us  take  note  that  there  is  a 
retributive  element  in  the  providence  of  God.  As 
I  have  already  remarked,  Persia,  under  Xerxes,  was 
very  far  indeed  from  being  constitutionally  governed, 
and  we  cannot,  especially  in  these  days,  approve  of 
his  ways  of  doing  things.  But  yet,  through  these 
ways  of  his,  God  was  by  His  providence  securing 
that  Haman  should  receive  the  reward  of  his  own 
doings.  He  who,  by  the  will  of  an  autocrat,  sought 
the  destruction  of  a  whole  people,  was  by  that  same 
will  consigned  to  death ;  and  on  the  gallows  which 
he  had  erected  for  the  execution  of  Mordecai  he 
was  himself  impaled.  The  Psalmist  has  said  of 
some  one  in  his  day :  "  He  made  a  pit,  and  digged 
it,  and  is  fallen  into  the  ditch  which  he  made.  His 
mischief  shall  return  upon  his  own  head,  and  his 
violent  dealing  shall  come  down  upon  his  own 
pate."*  And  again  :  "  The  heathen  are  sunk  down 
in  the  pit  that  they  made  :  in  the  net  which  they 
hid  is  their  own  foot  taken.     The  Lord  is  known 

*  Psalms  vii.,  15,  16. 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN,  227 

by  the  judgment  which  He  executeth :  the  wicked  is 
snared  in  the  work  of  his  own  hands."*  While  the 
Wise  Man  has  generalized  the  law  into  this  proverb  : 
''  Whoso  diggeth  a  pit  shall  fall  therein :  and  he 
that  rolleth  a  stone,  it  will  return  upon  him."t  The 
persecutors  of  Daniel  were  thrown  into  the  lions' 
den,  out  of  which  he  had  been  delivered ;  and 
Adonibezek  was  constrained  in  the  day  of  his  ret- 
ribution and  mutilation  to  say :  "  As  I  have  done, 
so  hath  God  requited  me."  We  all  remember  the 
ballad  of  Southey  which  tells  how  Sir  Ralph  the 
Rover,  who  cut  away  the  Inch  Cape  Bell,  perished 
with  all  his  crew  Upon  the  Inch  Cape  Rock;  and 
even  secular  historians  have  been  constrained  to 
remark  on  illustrations  of  the  fulfilment  of  this  law 
of  Providence.  Thus  Macaulay  reminds  us  that  no 
man  ever  made  a  more  unscrupulous  use  of  the 
legislative  power  for  the  destruction  of  his  enemies 
than  Thomas  Cromwell,  and  that  it  was  by  the  un- 
scrupulous use  of  the  legislative  power  that  he  was 
himself  destroyed.  And  Alison  recognizes  in  the 
death  of  Murat  a  memorable  instance  of  the  "  moral 
retribution  which  often  attends  upon  great  deeds  of 
iniquity,  and  by  the  instrumentality  of  the  very  acts 
that  appeared  to  place  them  beyond  its  reach."  He 
underwent,  in  18 15,  the  very  fate  to  which,  seven 
years  before,  he  had  consigned  a  hundred  Spaniards 
of  Madrid,  guilty  of  no  other  crime  than  of  defend- 

*  Psalms  ix.,  15,  16.         f  Proverbs  xxvi.,  27. 


228  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

ing  their  country,  and  this,  as  the  historian  adds, 
"  by  the  application  of  a  law  to  his  own  case  which 
he  himself  had  introduced  to  check  the  attempts 
of  the  Bourbons  to  regain  a  throne  which  he  had 
usurped."  Thus,  often,  in  the  words  of  the  great 
dramatist,  the  engineer  is  "hoist  with  his  own  pe- 
tard ;"  and  we  see  that  even  in  this  life  there  is 
retribution. 

But  it  maybe  said  that  though  this  is  observable 
in  great  matters  and  with  great  people,  it  is  not 
found  in  small.  And  to  that  I  reply  that  there  is 
nothing  small  in  the  providence  of  God.  We  have 
seen,  in  our  exposition  of  this  book,  that  it  includes 
the  smallest  things;  and  Christ  has  told  us  that  a 
sparrow  cannot  fall  to  the  ground  without  our 
Father.  No  matter,  therefore,  how  lowly  may  be 
our  lot,  or  how  limited  may  be  our  transactions,  if 
we  commit  sin  we  may  be  sure  that  sooner  or  later 
our  sin  will  find  us  out,  and  that  our  punishment 
may  come  in  the  form  of  some  evil  which  we  had 
planned  for  another.  "Ashes  always  fly  back  in 
the  face  of  him  that  throws  them ;"  and,  "  If  one 
will  sow  thorns,  he  had  better  not  walk  barefoot." 
Injustice,  cruelty,  wrong,  of  whatever  sort,  is  a 
boomerang  which  returns  to  the  hand  of  him  who 
threw  it ;  and  we  ought  to  exercise  ourselves  to  keep 
our  feet  in  the  paths  of  rectitude  and  holiness. 

But  others  may  say  that  this  law  is  not  absolutely 
universal,  and  that  there  have  been  cases  in  which 
it  has  not  been  fulfilled.     To  that  I  reply  that  there 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  229 

are  such  anomalies  in  God's  providence  on  earth, 
but  the  existence  of  these  is  only  a  reason  for  our 
believing  that  the  retribution  which  has  not  over- 
taken the  sinner  here  will  surely  come  upon  him 
hereafter ;  for  then  God  "  shall  render  to  every  man 
according  to  his  works."  This  is  a  truth  which,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  needs  to  be  proclaimed  with  partic- 
ular plainness  to  the  men  of  this  generation.  They 
dwell,  with  much  unction,  on  the  love  and  tender- 
ness of  God,  and  if  they  but  took  in  the  whole  truth 
they  could  not  dwell  too  much  upon  it ;  but  they 
forget  the  judicial  aspect  of  His  government,  and 
the  terrible  nature  of  some  of  His  retributions.  It 
is  no  kindness,  however,  to  keep  these  things  out  of 
view.  God's  moral  administration  is  retributive, 
and  the  wrong- doer  must  one  day  confront  the 
wrong  that  he  has  done — nay,  must  confront  the 
avenging  God,  who  comes  to  reckon  with  him  for 
the  wrong.  He  may  meet  Him  in  some  desolating 
stroke  of  His  providence  ;  but,  in  any  event,  he 
must  meet  Him  on  His  judgment-throne — and,  un- 
less he  repent  and  return  to  God  here,  his  appeal 
for  mercy  there  will  be  as  powerless  as  was  that  of 
Haman  to  Esther  in  the  case  before  us. 


IX. 

A     NEW    DECREE. 
Esther  VIII. ,  3-17. 

It  had  been  a  wonderful  and  exciting  day.  The 
guilty  had  been  summarily  executed,  and  the  faith- 
ful had  been  signally  exalted.  Xerxes,  therefore, 
would  retire  to  his  couch  in  such  a  frame  of  mind 
as  would  conduce  to  his  enjoyment  of  refreshing 
rest,  without  the  use  of  any  expedient  like  that  by 
which  he  had  sought  to  beguile  or  remove  the 
sleeplessness  of  the  preceding  night.  But  it  would 
be  otherwise  with  Esther,  and  I  can  imagine  her 
lying  long  awake  pondering  what  her  next  step 
should  be ;  for  she  was  in  "  a  place  where  two  seas 
met."  On  the  one  hand,  the  enemy  of  her  foster- 
father  and  her  race  had  been  removed,  and  Morde- 
cai  had  been  promoted  to  the  highest  position  in 
the  State,  so  that  there  was  now  no  danger  either  of 
his  life  or  of  her  own.  For  these  things,  therefore, 
there  would  be  gladness  and  gratitude  in  her  heart. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  decree  which  had  been 
issued  at  the  instigation  of  Haman  remained  in 
force,  and  unless  something  were  done  immediately 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  23  I 

the  thirteenth  of  the  month  Adar  would  see  the  de- 
struction of  her  people  in  every  province  of  the  em- 
pire. The  remembrance  of  that  would  fill  her  with 
anxiety,  and  the  great  question  with  her  would  come 
to  be,  what  her  duty  was  in  the  case.  The  work 
for  which,  as  Mordecai  had  said,  she  had  been 
brought  to  the  kingdom,  was  still  unperformed  until 
the  salvation  of  the  Jews  was  secured,  and  she 
could  not  rest  until  she  had  done  everything  in  her 
power  for  the  attainment  of  that.  But  what  was 
she  to  do  ?  Xerxes  had  been  very  prompt  in  his 
dealing  with  Haman,  but  he  seemed  to  have  forgot- 
ten the  decree,  so  that,  left  to  himself,  it  was  not 
likely  that  he  would  do  anything  more  in  the  mat- 
ter, and  it  would  be  too  bad  to  ask  Mordecai  to  make 
his  first  business  with  the  King  as  grand  vizer  of  a 
kind  so  personal  and  painful.  There  was  nothing 
for  it,  therefore,  but  another  application  to  Xerxes  by 
herself,  and  that  accordingly  she  resolved  to  make. 
-  As  on  the  former  occasion,  she  presented  herself 
unannounced  to  the  King,  and  was  relieved  to  see 
again  the  golden  sceptre  held  out  towards  her.  Re- 
lieved, I  say,  for  she  still  took  this  liberty  at  the 
risk  of  her  life ;  and  while  the  tokens  of  favor 
which  she  had  already  received  were  encouraging 
enough,  it  was  just  possible  that  the  monarch  might 
take  a  sudden  pique,  and,  saying  within  himself, 
"  What,  Esther  again  ?  this  is  getting  monotonous 
and  must  be  put  an  end  to,"  might  utterly  ignore 
her  presence,  and  leave  her  to  be  taken  away  by 


232  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

the  chamberlains  who  had  so  unceremoniously  re- 
moved the  Agagite.  But  He  in  whose  hand  is  the 
King's  heart,  and  who  "turneth  it  whithersoever 
he  will,"*  inclined  the  monarch  to  receive  her 
graciously;  whereupon  she  rose  and  said:  "If  it 
please  the  King,  and  if  I  have  found  favor  in  his 
sight,  and  the  thing  seem  right  before  the  King,  and 
I  be  pleasing  in  his  eyes,  let  it  be  written  to  reverse 
the  letters  devised  by  Haman  the  son  of  Ham- 
medatha  the  Agagite,  which  he  wrote  to  destroy 
the  Jews  which  are  in  all  the  King's  provinces." 
Mark  here  again  the  prudence  of  Esther,  not  only 
in  the  observance  of  courtly  etiquette  and  in  the  ar- 
rangement of  her  plans,  making  all  turn  at  last  on 
his  personal  liking  for  herself,  but  also,  and  perhaps 
still  more,  in  the  adroitness  with  which,  representing 
the  decree  as  Haman's,  she  asks  that  it  might  be 
reversed.  But  in  putting  it  so,  she  had  simply  re- 
minded Xerxes  that  the  decree  had  been  sealed 
with  his  ring  and  issued  in  his  name,  and  so,  by  the 
constitution  of  Persia,  it  was  unchangeable.  Her 
request,  therefore,  could  not  be  granted,  and  per- 
haps it  was  because  she  saw  as  much  in  the  counte- 
nance of  the  King,  even  before  he  spoke,  that  she 
fell  down  at  his  feet  and  besought  him  with  tears, 
saying :  "  How  can  I  endure  to  see  the  evil  that 
shall  come  unto  my  people  ?  or  how  can  I  endure 
to  see  the  destruction  of  my  kindred.?"     But  a  re- 

*  Proverbs  xxL,  i. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  233 

versal  of  the  decree  was  out  of  the  question,  and 
the  monarch,  as  much  concerned  as  it  was  possible 
for  him  to  be,  explained  the  matter  fully  to  his 
pleading  wife.  He  told  her  that  his  refusal  was 
not  owing  to  any  displeasure  with  her,  as  indeed  she 
might  know  from  the  punishment  which  he  had  in- 
flicted upon  Haman  and  the  honor  which  he  had 
conferred  on  Mordecai,  but  simply  because.  King 
though  he  was,  he  had  it  not  in  his  power  to  reverse 
the  writing  which  had  been  written  in  the  royal 
name  and  sealed  with  the  royal  ring.  Still,  if  by 
any  other  means  short  of  reversing  it,  the  effect  of 
the  decree  could  be,  counteracted  or  neutralized, 
Mordecai  and  she  might  write  as  they  pleased  and 
issue  another  proclamation  through  the  empire  in 
his  name  and  under  his  seal. 

It  was  the  popular  belief  of  the  Persians  that 
their  king  was  God,  and  he  had  therefore  to,  at 
least,  seem  to  be  immutable.  "  He  was  required," 
as  Rawlinson  has  told  us,  "  never  to  revoke  an 
order  once  given,  however  much  he  might  regret  it ; 
never  to  draw  back  from  a  promise,  whatever  ill 
results  he  might  anticipate  from  its  performance. 
To  maintain  the  quasi-divine  character  which  at- 
tached to  him,  it  was  necessary  that  he  should 
seem  to  be  infallible,  immutable,  and  wholly  free 
from  the  weakness  of  repentance."  *     But  immuta- 

*  Five  Great  Monarchies,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  225,  226. 
In  the  lecture  by  M.  Dieulafoy,  previously  referred  to,  I 
find  the  following  modern  illustration  of  this  ancient  Persian 


234  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

bility  is  very  inconvenient  without  omniscience ; 
and  so  Xerxes  felt  it  to  be  in  the  present  instance. 
He  could  do  nothing  to  revoke  what  he  had  already 
issued,  and  it  was  for  Esther  and  her  kinsman  to 
devise  means  by  which  the  evil  might  be  minimized, 
and  they  had  his  authority  to  put  these  in  operation, 
under  his  seal,  in  all  his  provinces. 

It  was  noble  in  Esther  thus  again  to  put  her  life 

figment,  which,  as  it  would  seem,  continues  to  the  present  day  : 
"  The  dogma  of  infallibility  is  the  fatal  consequence  of  the 
sovereign  and  almost  divine  power  belonging  to  the  true  auto- 
crat. Whoever  retracts  has  been  mistaken.  The  history  of 
Persia  proves  that  the  Shah-in-Shah's  (i.  e.  King  of  Kings, 
title  of  the  Persian  monarchy)  never  knew  this  weakness.  Take 
one  example  from  a  thousand  (it  has  the  merit  of  being  re- 
cent) :  Fat-ali-Shah  reached  Shiraz  at  the  head  of  a  part  of  his 
army.  The  royal  caravan,  surprised  in  a  deep  gorge  by  a 
snow-storm,  was  soon  in  need  of  provisions.  The  generals  in- 
formed the  Shah  of  the  condition  of  the  troops,  and  entreated 
him  to  order  the  breaking  up  of  the  camp.  He  refused,  ar- 
gued the  perils  of  the  route,  and  put  ofT  the  start  until  the  day 
when  the  snow  should  have  disappeared  from  a  neighboring 
peak.  Famine  ravished  the  escort,  already  decimated  by  cold. 
Commanders  and  soldiers  might  die  to  the  last  one,  still  the 
sovereign  would  not  modify  his  first  orders.  The  courtiers 
were  so  convinced  of  this,  that,  instead  of  importuning  their 
master  with  useless  complaints,  they  sent  the  healthy  men  to 
the  mountains,  cleared  away  in  one  night  the  rock  which  the 
King  had  designated,  and  when  the  morning  came  claimed 
from  the  stupefied  Fat-ali-Shah  the  order  to  depart.  The  snow 
was  still  heavy,  the  roads  still  dangerous,  but  the  King  could 
yield  without  committing  an  offence  against  his  infallibility!" 
— Bibliotheca  Sacra  for  October,  18S9,  p.  631. 


ESTHER    THE    QUEEN.  235 

in  jeopardy  for  the  sake  of  her  people,  and  it  was 
generous  in  Xerxes  to  give  carte  blanche  to  Morde- 
cai,  but  neither  the  nobleness  of  the  one  nor  the  gen- 
erosity of  the  other  is  quite  without  a  parallel  in  mod- 
ern times.  In  the  course  of  my  reading  lately  in 
Scottish  ecclesiastical  history,  I  came — in  the  life 
of  William  Carstares,  a  Scottish  clergyman,  one  of 
the  favorite  advisers  of  William  III.,  and  afterwards 
Principal  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  but,  while 
William  lived,  almost  constantly  by  his  side — upon 
an  incident  which  I  do  not  hesitate  to  put  upon  a 
level  with  the  heroism  of  Esther  here,  and  which, 
therefore,  I  will  take  leave  to  relate  in  this  place. 
It  was  in  the  year  1694,  just  six  years  after  the 
Revolution,  and  before  matters  had  been  fully  set- 
tled in  Scotland,  either  in  Church  or  State.  Will- 
iam had  issued  orders  that  the  General  Assembly 
of  the  Church  of  Scotland  should  not  be, allowed  to 
meet  until  its  members  had  taken  two  civil  oaths, 
which  were  justly  obnoxious  to  them,  even  if  they 
had  been  rightfully  enforced.  They  held  that  the 
putting  of  this  test  before  the  door  of  the  Assembly 
was  just  a  repetition  of  that  despotic  interference 
with  their  ecclesiastical  affairs  for  which  the  Stuarts 
had  been  dethroned,  and  the  people  of  Scotland 
would  not  again  submit  to  anything  of  the  kind. 
They  were  greatly  excited  on  the  subject  and  in 
imminent  danger  of  breaking  out  into  actual  re- 
bellion. When  the  King's  commissioner  came  from 
London  to  Edinburgh  to  attend  the  Assembly  and 


236  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

saw  the  state  of  matters,  he  becamt;  alarmed,  and 
immediately  wrote  to  his  Majesty,  putting  the  facts 
before  him  and  asking  further  instructions.  He 
sent  the  letter  by  a  special  messenger,  who  was  to 
return  at  once  with  the  answer.  At  the  same  time 
the  clergymen  sent  a  memorial  to  Carstares  ear- 
nestly requesting  his  interference  with  his  Majesty 
in  behalf  of  the  Church.  When  the  express  reach- 
ed the  King,  Carstares  happened  not  to  be  at  hand, 
and  before  he  returned,  the  King,  by  the  advice  of 
two  men  who  were  not  alive  to  the  importance  of 
the  crisis,  had  written  renewing  his  orders  in  the 
most  positive  and  peremptory  manner.  Carstares 
returned  the  same  evening,  received  and  read  the 
memorial  which  had  been  sent  to  himself,  and  im- 
mediately inquired  into  the  nature  of  the  despatch- 
es which  had  been  ordered  to  be  sent  to  Scotland. 
When  he  found  out  what  had  been  done  he  took 
it  upon  himself  to  go  to  the  messenger,  who  had 
not  yet  started,  and  to  demand  from  him  in  the 
King's  name  the  papers  with  which  he  had  been 
intrusted ;  and  as  his  position  with  the  King  was 
well  known  to  all,  they  were  given  up  to  him.  It 
was  now  late,  but,  knowing  the  urgency  of  the  busi- 
ness, Carstares  hastened  to  the  King,  and  finding 
that  he  had  retired  for  the  night,  he  insisted  on  be- 
ing admitted  to  his  bedchamber.  The  King  was 
fast  asleep ;  but,  turning  the  curtain  aside  and  fall- 
ing on  his  knees,  Carstares  gently  awoke  him.  His 
Majesty  asked  what  was  the  matter.    "  I  come,"  he 


ESTHER    THE   QUEEN:  237 

answered,  "  to  beg  my  life."  "  Is  it  possible,"  said 
the  King,  "  that  yoic  can  have  been  guilty  of  a 
crime  that  deserves  death  ?"  He  acknowledged 
that  he  had,  and  then  produced  the  despatches 
which  he  had  taken  from  the  courier.  "  Have  you 
indeed  presumed,"  exclaimed  William,  with  a  frown, 
"  to  countermand  my  orders .?"  Carstares  begged 
leave  to  be  heard  only  for  a  few  minutes,  and  de- 
clared tha't  then  he  would  submit  to  any  punishment 
which  his  Majesty  might  think  proper  to  inflict. 
The  King  gave  him  permission  and  listened  atten- 
tively to  his  statement;  then,  after  a  little  while 
spent  in  thoughtful  silence,  he  ordered  him  to 
throw  the  despatches  into  the  fire,  and  draw  up 
new  instructions  to  the  commissioner  in  whatever 
terms  he  chose  and  he  would  sign  them.  This  was 
done,  and  the  messenger  was  commanded  to  use 
all  haste  in  his  return  to  Edinburgh,  where  he  ar- 
rived on  the  very  morning  of  the  meeting  of  the 
Assembly,  and  just  in  time  to  prevent  an  outbreak 
which  would  have  gladdened  the  hearts  of  the 
Jacobites,  and  might  have  put  back  the  shadow 
on  the  dial  of  the  land  by  more  than  ten  degrees.* 
But  William  could  reverse  his  orders,  a  thing 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  Xerxes  was  not  permitted 
to  do.  So,  as  the  next  best,  Mordecai  prepared  a 
decree,  a  copy  of  which  is  given  in  the  eleventh  and 

*  See  Hetherington's  History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland, 
vol.  ii. ,  pp.  215-217;  also,  Cunningham's  Church  History  of 
Scotland,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  192,  193. 


238  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

twelfth  verses  of  this  chapter,  and  which  granted 
the  Jews  who  were  in  every  city  Hberty  to  gather 
themselves  together,  and  to  stand  for  their  lives,  to 
destroy,  to  slay,  and  to  cause  to  perish  all  the  power 
of  the  people  and  province  that  would  assault  them, 
both  little  ones  and  women,  and  to  take  the  spoil  of 
them  for  a  prey,  upon  one  day  in  all  the  provinces  of 
King  Xerxes  :  namely,  "  upon  the  thirteenth  day  of 
the  tv/elfth  month,  which  is  the  month  Adar."  It 
was  a  cumbrous  way  of  meeting  the  crisis,  but  per- 
haps it  was  the  only  possible  way ;  and  so  far  as  it 
encouraged  the  Jews  to  act  in  self-defence,  no  fault 
can  be  found.  Yet  we  shudder  at  the  inclusion  of 
the  women  and  little  ones  in  the  conscription,  and 
at  the  authorization  of  the  taking  of  spoil  for  a 
prey,  though,  as  we  shall  see  later,  that  clause  was 
not  acted  upon.  But  we  cannot  look  for  the  moral- 
ity of  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian  era  in 
the  fifth  century  before  Christ ;  and  in  this  aspect 
of  the  case  the  cruelties  inflicted  on  the  Jews — in 
mediaeval  centuries  after  the  birth  of  Christ — are 
vastly  more  inexcusable  than  those  which  were  au- 
thorized in  this  decree.  But  two  wrongs  do  not 
make  one  right,  and  we  may  well  be  thankful  that 
our  lot  is  cast  in  better  times  than  either. 

The  Provincial  Office — if  so  we  may  call  it — in 
Shushan  had  a  busy  time  of  it  again  while  transla- 
tions of  the  decree  into  all  the  languages  of  the 
provinces  were  made  and  the  required  number  of 
copies  was  produced,  for  it  was  now  past  the  mid- 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  239 

die  of  the  third  month,  and  it  was  of  great  impor- 
tance that  the  document  should  reach  the  remotest 
boundary  of  the  empire  before  the  thirteenth  of 
Adar.  There  was  no  time  to  be  lost  either  by  scribes 
or  by  the  couriers ;  and  so  the  letters  were  sent  by 
the  swiftest  possible  means  of  transportation  which 
was  then  in  existence.  The  Authorized  Version 
says  that  "  they  were  sent  by  posts  on  horseback, 
and  riders  on  mules,  camels,  and  young  dromeda- 
ries." The  original  words  are  very  obscure,  and 
the  meaning  of  them  is  difficult  to  discover,  but 
Rawlinson  translates  them  thus :  "  and  sent  letters 
by  riders  upon  coursers  of  the  King's  stud,  off- 
spring of  high-bred  steeds."*  The  Revised  Ver- 
sion reads  thus  :  "  He  sent  letters  by  post  on  horse- 
back, riding  on  swift  steeds  that  were  used  in  the 
King's  service,  bred  of  the  stud." 

After  the  issuing  of  the  decree,  Mordecai  went 
out  from  the  presence  of  the  King  "  in  apparel  of 
blue  and  white,  with  a  great  crown  of  gold,  encir- 
cled at  its  base  with  a  diadem  of  white  and  pur- 
ple "  —  emblematic  of  his  exaltation  to  the  office 
which  Haman  had  held  —  and  whereas,  aforetime, 
"  the  city  Shushan  was  perplexed  "  when  the  people 
read  the  edict  that  doomed  the  Jews  to  destruction, 
the  sight  of  his  promotion  now  filled  it  with  glad- 
ness, and  the  Jews  themselves  had  light  and  glad- 
ness and  joy  and  honor.     Nay,  such  was  the  effect 

*  The  Pulpit  Commentary^  in  loco. 


240  ESTHER  THE    QUEEN. 

produced  by  the  new  edict  that  many  of  the  people 
of  the  land  became  proselytes  to  the  Jewish  reli- 
gion, for  "  the  fear  of  the  Jews  fell  upon  them." 

Now,  in  seeking  to  turn  the  incidents  recorded  in 
this  chapter  to  practical  account,  we  may  find  some 
lessons  affecting  the  three  departments  of  the  per- 
sonal, the  political,  and  the  ecclesiastical. 

And,  first,  taking  note  of  what  is  specially  ap- 
propriate to  individual  character,  we  are  reminded 
of  the  irreversible  in  human  life.  It  was  a  foolish,  in- 
convenient, and  altogether  irrational  custom  among 
the  Persians  that  no  decree,  once  published,  could 
be  repealed.  And  we  can  see  in  the  case  before  us 
how,  in  order  to  get  round  that  prohibition,  impe- 
rial sanction  was  given  to  the  maintenance,  for  one 
day  at  least,  of  a  conflict  between  two  classes  of 
the  people,  which  actually  resulted  in  much  blood- 
shed. It  would  have  been  infinitely  better,  there- 
fore, if  the  decree  had  been  simply  cancelled.  But 
while  all  that  is  true — and  we  cannot  but  be  alive 
to  the  injustice  that  was  sure  to  follow  from  the  ob- 
servance of  such  a  custom — we  cannot  fail  also  to 
be  reminded  that  there  is  much  of  our  own  conduct 
which  no  man  can  reverse.  The  word  once  spoken 
cannot  be  recalled.  The  deed  once  done  cannot 
be  undone.  The  book  once  issued  begins  to  exer- 
cise an  influence  which  cannot  be  bottled  up  again, 
but  which  must  go  on  operative  for  evermore.  Ah, 
how  many  there  are  among  us  who  would  give  all 
they  have — would,  indeed,  part  with  a  right  hand  or 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  241 

a  right  eye — if  they  could  reverse  some  portion  of 
their  career.  The  man  who  in  youth  sowed  "  wild 
oats "  cannot  stop  the  production  of  the  harvest 
which  has  sprung  from  his  folly.  The  hasty- 
tempered  one,  whose  words  sunk  into  the  heart  of 
a  friend,  and  stabbed  him  with  something  keener 
than  a  poniard,  cannot  undo  the  mischief  he  has 
wrought.  The  author  of  a  vile  book  may  see  his 
folly  and  lament  it,  and  may  do  his  utmost  to  recall 
the  copies  that  have  been  issued ;  but  so  long  as 
there  is  one  in  circulation,  that  will  perpetuate  the 
evil,  and  he  cannot  catch  and  confine  the  influence 
which  it  is  exerting  in  those  by  whom  it  was  read 
before  they  gave  it  up.  You  cannot  stop  the  ball 
after  it  has  left  the  gun.  You  cannot  overtake  an 
express  train  after  it  has  started.  If  you  shake  the 
dew-drop  from  a  flower  you  cannot  put  it  back 
again.  If  you  rub  the  down  from  a  peach  you  can- 
not restore  it  to  its  place.  These  things  are  just 
as  irreversible  as  a  Persian  decree.  And  in  the 
same  way  no  man  can  undo  that  which  he  has 
done.  What  manner  of  persons,  therefore,  ought 
we  to  be  since  all  this  is  true  ?  "  Don't  write  there, 
sir,"  said  a  newsboy  to  a  young  dandy  in  tlie  wait- 
ing-room of  an  English  railway  station,  when  he  saw 
him  take  off  his  ring  and  begin  with  the  diamond 
in  it  to  scratch  some  words  upon  the  surface  of  the 
mirror.  "Don't  write  there,  sir."  "Why  not?" 
"  Because  you  can't  rub  it  out."  Ah,  if  we  would 
only  remember  that  we  cannot  undo  or  reverse  or 
II 


242  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

obliterate  the  past,  how  careful  we  would  be  as  to 
our  manner  of  life !  And  in  this  connection  how 
powerful  are  the  last  words  uttered  by  my  dear 
friend  Mr.  Gough !  He  had  been  bewailing,  as  he 
often  did  with  bitter  humiliation,  the  loss  of  those 
seven  years  of  his  life  during  which  he  had  been 
the  victim  of  intemperance,  and  had  said  that  he 
would  give  his  right  hand  if  he  could  undo  those 
sad,  sad  things.  But  they  were  irreversible.  They 
could  not  be  altered.  "Therefore,"  added  he, 
"young  men,  keep  your  record  clean."  Let  me 
echo  these  historic  words  to-night :  "  Young  men, 
keep  your  record  clean."  Lay  not  up  for  yourselves 
a  heritage  of  unavailing  regret  in  the  years  that  are 
to  come.  Clog  not  the  wheels  of  your  future  by 
the  encumbering  brakes  of  the  past.  Preserve  the 
first  fresh  sensitivity  of  conscience ;  and,  as  the  best 
means  of  doing  that,  begin  and  carry  on  your  lives 
as  the  loving  disciples  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

But  in  the  second  place,  though  the  past  cannot 
always  be  reversed,  we  may  do  something  to  coun- 
teract its  influence.  We  need  not  sit  down  in  de- 
spair or  give  ourselves  up  to  indolence  and  regret. 
We  may  sincerely  repent  of  it ;  we  may  have  for- 
giveness for  it ;  and  we  may  be  regenerated  after  it. 
We  shall  never  be  precisely  as  we  might  have  been 
if  we  had  never  done  the  evil  which  we  nov/  deplore, 
but  something  may  be  made  out  of  us  still,  and  we 
may  even  be  able  to  serve  God  in  ways  that  might 
not  have  been  open  to  us,  save  for  the  experience 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  243 

through  which  we  have  passed.'  You  remember  the 
lesson  which  Jeremiah  taught  his  people  from  his 
visit  to  the  house  of  the  potter.*  He  told  them 
that  while  there  he  had  seen  the  workman  trying 
to  make  a  vessel  out  of  clay  which  was  then  upon 
the  wheel.  But  the  clay  was  marred,  and  he  had 
to  give  up  his  original  design.  But  he  did  not 
throw  away  the  clay.  He  made  it  into  something 
else,  not  so  noble,  but  yet  useful.  And  then  the 
prophet  represents  God  as  saying  to  the  people, 
"O,  house  of  Israel,  cannot  I  do  as  this  potter?" 
as  if  he  had  said  "  You  would  not  let  me  make  you 
into  that  which  I  had  first  designed  you  to  be,  but 
if  you  will  willingly  submit  yourselves  to  me  now  I 
can  still  make  something  out  of  you."  Now,  up  to 
a  certain  point,  even  though  the  past  be  irreversible, 
there  is  still  this  lower  possibility  before  us.  It 
may  involve  strife  and  agony  and  effort,  just  as  in 
the  case  before  us  the  deliverance  of  the  Jews  was 
not  effected  without  conflict,  but  it  can  be  done  if 
we  will  now  repent  and  return  unto  the  Lord.  Thus 
Manasseh  in  later  life  did  much  to  counteract  the 
evil  of  his  earlier  days.  Thus  Paul  the  Apostle, 
though  he  would  never  forget  that  he  had  perse- 
cuted the  Church  and  wasted  it,  became  the  greatest 
missionary  of  his  age,  perhaps  of  all  ages,  and  thus, 
to  recur  again  to  my  departed  friend,  Mr.  Cough's 
temperance  triumphs  helped  to  counteract  the  in- 

*  Jeremiah  xviii.,  i-io.      See  Contrary  Winds,  and  other 
Sermons,  by  the  author,  pp.  150-168. 


244  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

fluence  though  they  could  not  atone  for  the  guilt 
of  his  early  excesses.  If,  therefore,  there  should 
be  those  before  me  who  are  mourning  bitterly  over 
the  irreparable  past,  let  them  not  despair.  There 
is  hope  for  them  yet  if  they  will  submit  themselves 
plastically  to  the  Redeemer's  hands,  provided  they 
do  so  at  once.  For  after  the  day  of  grace  ends  that 
possibility  will  cease.  To-day,  therefore,  let  them 
return  unto  Him,  and  He  will  make  them  yet  into 
vessels,  if  not  of  honor,  at  least  "fit  for  the  master's 
use."  They  may  have  to  slay  appetites,  habits, 
lusts,  besetments,  as  here  the  Jews  had  to  stand 
against  their  assailants,  but  if  they  will  only  fight 
valiantly,  trusting  in  His  grace,  they  shall  at  last  be 
more  than  conquerors  through  Him  that  loveth  them. 
But  there  is  a  political  as  well  as  a  personal  les- 
son to  be  learned  from  this  chapter.  It  is  that  the 
happiness  of  the  citizens  depends  upon  the  char- 
acter of  the  rulers.  When  Haman  was  vizier  the 
city  Shushan  was  perplexed ;  but  when  Mordecai 
was  exalted  the  city  Shushan  shouted  and  was  glad. 
Now,  it  is  the  same  with  all  civic  communities  still. 
"  The  wicked  walk  on  every  side,  when  the  vilest 
men  are  exalted,"*  and  there  is  no  calamity  to  a 
people  that  may  well  be  compared  with  that  of  hav- 
ing unprincipled  men  in  offices  of  trust.  Again  and 
again  we  have  realized  the  truth  of  that  statement 
in  this  city.     It  is  not  yet  twenty  years  since  we 

*  Psalms  xii.,  8. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN".  245 

got  rid  of  a  band  of  robbers  who,  to  carry  out  their 
dishonest  plans,  corrupted  the  halls  of  legislation, 
and  poisoned  the  very  well-heads  of  justice  in  the 
courts  of  law,  and  now  again,  as  it  would  seem,  rev- 
elations are  coming  out  which  make  all  good  men 
hang  their  heads,  and  dispose  some  thoughtful  per- 
sons among  us  to  ask  whether  our  boasted  democ- 
racy is  not  destined  to  be  a  failure  after  all.  For 
the  exaltation  of  Haman  here,  Xerxes  was  alone  to 
blame ;  but  then  when  he  found  out  his  fault,  Xerxes 
had  no  one  to  consult  but  himself,  and  so  could 
send  him  at  once  to  punishment.  With  us,  however, 
the  people  are  sovereign.  Those  who  are  in  office 
are  there  by  the  will  of  the  people,  and  ought  to  be 
amenable  to  their  review.  That  is  the  true  theory 
of  our  government,  and  in  that  true  liberty  consists. 
But  then  there  must  be  true  men  to  work  it  out, 
and  the  community  must  come  at  length  to  the  ac- 
ceptance and  application  of  this  principle :  that  a 
man  who  is  morally  rotten  never  can  be  really  po- 
litically serviceable.  He  whose  character  is  hon- 
eycombed with  intemperance  or  licentiousness  or 
dishonesty,  ought  to  be  for  that  very  reason  regard- 
ed as  disqualified  to  hold  office,  either  in  the  city, 
the  state,  or  the  nation.  Now,  to  secure  that  we 
need  something  higher  than  mere  civil  service  re- 
form, valuable  as  that  would  be.  No  competitive 
examination  can  gauge  a  man's  morals.  But  where 
that  is  powerless,  the  moral  sense  of  an  indignant 
and  spiritually-revived  community  is  omnipotent, 


246  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

and  that,  through  the  evangelization  of  the  people, 
and  through  the  greater  activity  and  prominence  of 
Christian  men  in  political  primaries  and  conven- 
tions than  v;re  have  yet  witnessed,  we  jutist  secure. 
It  could  be  done  if  all  Christian  men  of  all  parties 
were  to  take  a  united  stand,  and  persistently  to  de- 
mand that  it  should  be  done.  But  as  long  as  our 
boards  of  aldermen,  of  excise,  of  police,  and  so 
forth,  are  constituted  as  we  know  some  of  them  to 
be,  we  cannot  expect  anything  different  from  that 
which  is  now  being  brought  to  light,  for  as  the  prov- 
erb has  it,  roughly  but  strongly,  "  You  cannot  make 
a  silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear."  But  Xerxes  is  re- 
sponsible for  it  all,  and  Xerxes  is,  in  this  case,  the 
imperial  people — that  is,  the  citizens  of  the  city,  of 
the  state,  and  of  the  nation.  Until,  then,  you  rise  in 
your  might  and  sweep  out  this  Augean  stable,  and 
take  means  to  keep  it  perpetually  clean,  the  city 
Shushan  must  be  perplexed  and  sad ,  but  when  you 
do  that  Haman  will  follow  Tweed  into  his  cell,  and 
Mordecai  will  wear  the  blue  and  white  of  office,  and 
the  city  will  rejoice.  But  alas !  alas !  the  Xerxes 
is  asleep !  Oh,  for  some  valiant  one  to  take  the  re- 
sponsibility of  awakening  him,  and  showing  him 
both  what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it ! 

But  now,  in  the  ecclesiastical  department,  we 
have  this  lesson,  namely,  that  when  the  Church  is 
on  the  top  of  the  wave,  many  people  are  tempted 
to  join  it  from  unworthy  motives.  Such  was  the 
effect  of  the  new  decree  which  Mordecai  had  die- 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  247 

tated,  that  many  from  among  the  people  of  the 
lands  became  Jews,  for  the  fear  of  the  Jews  was 
fallen  upon  them.  Had  the  massacre  been  per- 
mitted to  go  on,  according  to  Haman's  design,  no 
one  would  have  cared  then  to  have  identified  him- 
self with  them.  But  now  that  a  Jew  was  prime- 
minister,  and  that  it  was  known  that  the  Emperor's 
favorite  wife  was  a  Jev/ess,  the  case  was  altered, 
and  it  was  supposed  that  it  would  pay  best  to  be  of 
that  community.  So  multitudes  from  these  low 
motives  became  proselytes  to  the  Jews'  religion. 
With  some,  perhaps,  it  might  be  different,  and  the 
perception  by  them  of  the  fact  that  the  Jewish  na- 
tion was  under  the  special  protection  of  God,  and 
that  no  weapon  directed  against  them  prospered, 
might  have  had  something  to  do  with  their  conver- 
sion. But  as  far  as  the  majority  were  concerned, 
the  change  was  dictated  solely  by  self-interest  of  a 
worldly  sort.  Now,  we  see  the  same  thing  in  mod- 
ern times  in  the  connection  of  many  with  the  visible 
Church.  So  long  as  such  connection  involves  ridi- 
cule, reproach,  or  persecution  of  any  sort,  there  is 
reason  to  expect  that  only  those  who  are  sincerely 
devoted  to  the  Lord  Jesus  will  enroll  themselves 
among  His  confessed  people.  But  when  it  be- 
comes fashionable,  when  identification  with  a  par- 
ticular church  gives  the  entree  to  a  certain  circle  of 
society,  or  when  it  can  be  turned  to  account  for 
the  formation  of  a  good  matrimonial  alliance,  or 
the  establishment  of  an  excellent  business  connec- 


248  ESTHER  THE   QUEEN. 

tion,  then  there  is  great  danger  lest  the  low  motives 
which  here  impelled  some  from  among  the  peoples 
of  the  Persian  Empire  to  become  Jews,  will  lead 
self-seeking  and  ambitious  men  to  join  its  member- 
ship. Indeed,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  there  are 
churches  among  us  which  are  held  together  more 
by  such  social  influences  than  by  anything  else. 
It  is  '■'■the  thing"  in  some  coteries  to  belong  to  them, 
and  so  people  join  them  as  gentlemen  do  a  club. 
It  is  all  wrong,  and  it  will  work  tremendous  mis- 
chief in  the  end.  The  true  reasons  why  one  should 
unite  himself  with  a  particular  church  are  because, 
first  of  all,  he  is  already  united  to  Christ ;  because 
next,  the  organization  and  activities  of  that  special 
church  commend  themselves  to  him  as  most  in  har- 
mony with  the  principles  of  the  New  Testament ; 
and  because,  finally,  he  is  most  edified  and  sus- 
tained by  its  ordinances  and  ministry.  But  to  allow 
fashionable  or  worldly  motives  to  intervene  and  be- 
come the  determining  elements,  is  to  secularize  the 
church  by  making  it  an  anteroom  of  the  world  and 
so  subordinating  it  to  the  world.  One  should  be 
in  that  church  where  he  sees  most  of  Christ,  where 
he  gets  most  from  Christ ;  and  where  he  can  do 
most  for  Christ.  The  church  that  is  composed  of 
such  members  will  be  blessed,  and  will  be  made  a 
blessing,  not  to  its  own  adherents  only  but  to  all 
around.  If  it  were  true  in  Paul's  time  that  he  was 
not  a  Jew  who  was  simply  and  only  one  outwardly, 
it  is  just  as  true  now  that  he  is  not  a  Christian  who 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN,  249 

merely  joins  the  church  for  the  material  profit 
which  he  can  make  out  of  it.  But  he  is  a  Christian 
who  is  one  inwardly,  whose  confession  is  not  of  the 
lip  but  of  the  heart,  not  of  the  letter  but  of  the 
spirit,  whose  praise  is  not  of  men  but  of  God. 
Such  Christians  all  churches  would  welcome  to  their 
fellowship,  but  of  the  rest,  the  fewer  any  church  has 
in  its  membership  the  better,  for  though  they  may 
bring  wealth,  they  do  not  bring  worth  ,  though  they 
may  bring  worldly  prestige,  they  do  not  bring  spirit- 
ual power ,  and  when  a  winnowing  time  comes  they 
will  but  illustrate  the  truth  of  the  Psalm  which 
likens  them  to  "  the  chaff  which  the  wind  driveth 
away."  May  God  give  us  all  in  this  important 
matter  the  grace  of  sincerity. 


X. 

THE  FEAST  OF  PURIM. 
Esther  IX.,  X. 

Between  the  twenty-third  day  of  the  month  Si- 
van  and  the  thirteenth  day  of  the  month  Adar  there 
was  an  interval  of  almost  nine  months.  There  was 
time,  therefore,  for  the  new  edict  to  reach  the  ut- 
most limits  of  the  empire,  and  also  for  the  Jews  to 
make  ample  preparations  everywhere  for  their  de- 
II* 


250  ESTHER    THE   QUEEN. 

fence.  Of  course  the  nearer  to  Shush  an  a  place 
was,  there  would  be  just  so  much  the  earlier  knowl- 
edge of  the  purport  of  the  second  proclamation, 
and  just  so  much  the  longer  time  for  counsel  and 
co-operation  among  the  Jews  in  it;  but  not  even  in 
the  remotest  village  on  the  frontier,  in  any  direc- 
tion, could  they  be  taken  unawares.  And  who  may 
describe  what  a  weight  would  be  lifted  from  each 
Jewish  heart  as  the  decree  was  read  ?  Had  it  not 
been  published  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
them  to  act  together,  and  their  enemies,  falling  on 
them  one  by  one,  would  easily  have  destroyed  them. 
But  now  they  were  authorized  to  stand  by  each 
other  and  defend  themselves  against  all  comers, 
with  the  assurance  besides  that  all  the  officials  in 
the  Empire  were  on  their  side,  civil  and  military 
alike,  because  now  Mordecai  was  the  prime-minis- 
ter, and  a  Jewess  was  the  King's  favorite  wife. 
The  change  which  the  edict  produced  in  them, 
therefore,  was  one  from  the  darkest  despair  to  the 
strongest  hope.  Yet  they  were  not  lulled  by  it  into 
inactivity.  They  did  not  say  within  themselves  "  the 
danger  is  all  over,  for  our  enemies  will  never  think 
to  attack  us  in  the  face  of  this  manifestation  of  the 
royal  will,  and  we  may  therefore  take  no  more 
thought  for  the  matter."  They  knew  better  than  to 
do  that,  for  the  other  edict  was  still  in  force.  Their 
enemies,  therefore,  might  still  fall  upon  them  and 
show  their  malice  and  revenge  by  seeking  to  mur- 
der them,  just  because  for  that  day  they  could  do 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  25  I 

SO  without  being  interfered  with  by  the  authorities, 
and  without  subjecting  themselves  to  the  penalties 
of  the  law.  It  was  a  curious  state  of  things.  On  the 
one  hand  the  antagonists  of  the  Jews  might  attack 
them  without  incurring  any  legal  penalty,  and  on 
the  other  the  Jews  might  defend  themselves  by 
every  means  at  their  disposal  without  fear  of  inter- 
ference. So  there  was  a  strong  temptation  to  the 
former  to  take  advantage  of  the  immunity  of  the 
day  for  the  gratification  of  their  revenge,  and  there 
was  the  utmost  necessity  for  vigilance  and  ener- 
getic preparation  among  the  latter.  It  was  a  race 
quarrel,  left  for  orte  day  to  fight  itself  out,  in  all  the 
provinces  of  the  Persian  Empire. 

The  result  was  just  that  which  might  have  been 
expected.  Seventy-five  thousand  of  the  Jews'  ene- 
mies were  slain.  The  Septuagint  reads  "fifteen 
thousand,"  and  it  is  well  known  that  because  of  the 
pecuUar  manner  in  which  numerals  were  indicated 
in  the  Hebrew  original,  there  is  considerable  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  Bible  numbers.  But  the  smaller  of 
the  two  is  terrible  enough,  while  the  larger  is  not  at 
all  beyond  the  limits  of  probability. 

Now,  concerning  this  dreadful  affair,  three  things 
need  to  be  emphasized.  First :  The  Jews  were  not 
the  assailants.  They  acted  throughout  in  self-de- 
fence. That  was  all  they  were  authorized  to  do  by 
Mordecai's  edict,  and  where  they  were  not  attacked 
they  would  offer  no  violence.  Self-defence,  how- 
ever, is  a  law  of  nature,  and  they  cannot  be  blamed 


252  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

for  what  they  did ;  for,  if  they  kept  simply  to. that, 
their  conduct,  even  by  a  modern  jury,  would  have 
been  styled  "justifiable  homicide."  In  the  second 
place,  they  did  not  even  go  so  far  as  the  edict  al- 
lowed them.  Mordecai,  taking  his  cue  in  this  mat- 
ter from  Haman,  authorized  the  Jews  "to  destroy, 
to  slay,  and  to  cause  to  perish  all  the  power  of  the 
people  of  the  province  that  would  assault  them, 
both  little  ones  and  women,  and  to  take  the  spoil 
of  them  for  a  prey."  We  should  have  thought  bet- 
ter of  Esther  and  her  cousin  if  these  clauses  about 
the  little  ones  and  the  women  and  the  spoil  had 
not  been  there.  Perhaps  they  were  legal  forms  of 
expression,  and  inserted  as  things  of  course  without 
much  thought  of  their  significance  ;  but  their  exist- 
ence betokens  a  hard,  stern,  unrelenting,  "measure 
for  measure  "  sort  of  spirit,  which  does  not  com- 
mend itself  to  our  approval — nay,  let  us  say  it  posi- 
tively, which  is  worthy  of  reprobation.  But  the 
people  were  wiser  in  this  instance  than  Mordecai, 
for  there  is  no  mention  made  in  the  record  of  any 
hurt  done  to  the  women  and  children,  and  it  is  dis- 
tinctly stated  that  "they  laid  not  their  hands  upon 
the  spoil."  They  would  not  have  it  said  that  they 
had  enriched  themselves  with  the  property  of  their 
enemies.  The  spirit  of  Abraham  was  in  that  wise 
resolution  of  theirs,  and  by  carrying  it  out  they 
proved  that  they  were  his  seed  in  a  higher  sense 
than  that  of  the  flesh.  In  the  third  place,  it  is  not 
said  how  many  of  the  Jews  were  slain.     So  far  as 


ESTHER   THE    QUEEN.  253 

the  history  goes,  there  might  not  have  been  one  of 
them  put  to  death.  But  it  is  scarcely  possible  that 
this  should  have  been  the  case,,  for,  in  every  place, 
they  had  no  warrant  to  act  until  they  were  attacked, 
and  the  consequences  of  that  attack,  one  would 
think,  must  have  been  the  slaughter  of  many.  In 
Shushan  five  hundred  of  their  enemies  were  slain, 
and  among  these  were  the  ten  sons  of  Haman, 
whose  names  are  written  in  the  Hebrew  rolls  in 
perpendicular  columns ;  and  it  is  said  by  the  com- 
mentators, that  the  Reader  of  the  book  in  the  syna- 
gogue, at  the  Purim  festival,  is  required  to  pro- 
nounce all  the  ten  names  in  one  breath,  a  feat 
which  would  require  long-windedness  of  another 
sort  than  that  which  is  the  bete  noire  of  so  many  of 
the  attendants  at  our  modern  churches. 

And  now  we  come  upon  an  incident  which  stag- 
gers and  perplexes  us  more  than  anything  we  have 
met  with  in  this  whole  book.  On  the  evening  oi  the 
thirteenth  of  Adar,  when  the  report  was  brought  to 
the  palace  that  five  hundred  had  been  slain  in  Shu- 
shan, the  King  exclaimed,  "  What,  five  hundred  ?  If 
that  be  so  here,  what  must  it  have  been  in  the  rest 
of  the  provinces  ?"  but  Esther  seemed  still  troubled 
and  unsatisfied  ;  and  perceiving  that  Xerxes  said  to 
her,  "What  is  thy  petition?  and  it  shall  be  granted 
thee  :  or  what  is  thy  request  further  ?  and  it  shall 
be  done  ?"  In  reply,  she  asked  that  the  decree  of 
Mordecai  should  continue  in  force  for  another  day 
in  Shushan,  and  that  the  dead  bodies  of  the  sons 


254  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

of  Haman,  who  had  been  slain  that  day,  should  be 
impaled  upon  the  gallows ;  and  these  things  were 
done  at  her  desire,  so  that  three  hundred  more  of 
the  Jews's  assailants  w^re  put  to  death  in  Shushan, 
and  the  ghastly  sight  of  these  ten  corpses  was  ex- 
posed to  the  view  of  all  the  people.  Now  this  strikes 
us  as  vindictive  and  revengeful — savoring  a  little  too 
much  of  the  spirit  of  Haman  himself,  and  rather  to 
be  condemned  than  otherwise.  At  the  same  time, 
in  justice  to  Esther,  it  must  be  said  that  she  asked 
only  the  continuance  of  the  permission  granted  to 
the  Jews  to  act  on  the  defensive ;  that  there  may 
have  been  reasons  not  here  mentioned,  which  might 
go  far  to  justify  her  request ;  and  that,  except  in  the 
clause  of  Mordecai's  decree  which  refers  to  the  slay- 
ing of  the  women  and  children,  we  have  no  evidence 
otherwise  of  anything  like  the  existence  in  her  of  a 
blood-thirsty  disposition.  It  is  just  possible,  too, 
that  some  of  the  fiercest  assailants  of  the  Jews  on 
the  thirteenth  had  escaped  from  their  hands  on  that 
day ;  and  that  their  proximity  to  headquarters  might 
seem  to  her  to  make  it  necessary  that  they  should 
be  followed  up  and  put  to  death.  But,  in  any  case, 
it  must  be  confessed  that  the  request  here  made  by 
her  to  Xerxes  has  a  bad  look,  and  that,  in  spite  of 
ourselves,  it  takes  a  large  discount  from  the  other- 
wise exalted  estimate  of  her  character  which  we  were 
prepared  to  make,  investing  it  with  a  stern,  unre- 
lenting hatred  of  the  enemies  of  her  race,  which  is 
not  nearly  so  attractive  in  our  eyes  as  the  spirit  of 


ESTHER    THE   QUEEN.  255 

self-sacrifice  and  devotion  to  her  kindred,  which  was 
manifested  by  her  when  first  the  revelation  of  Ha- 
man's  plot  was  made  to  her.  But  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  had  not  then  been  preached ;  and  we  must 
not  insist  on  Christian  morality  at  that  early  date. 
The  record  of  her  deed  here  is  not  an  approval  of 
her  deed ;  and  he  must  be  very  blind  who  does  not 
see  that  the  great  truth,  for  the  illustration  of  which 
this  book  has  been  preserved  in  the  canon  of  Script- 
ure, is  that  God  carries  on  His  work  of  providence 
through  the  actions  of  men,  irrespective  of  the  qual- 
ity of  these  actions,  and  while  holding  each  to  a  rigid 
reckoning  for  his  own  conduct.  Now  the  purpose  of 
God  was  the  deliverance  of  the  Jews,  and  that  was 
effected ;  but  the  result  v/ill  not  justify  every  deed 
that  went  to  the  production  of  it ;  any  more  than  the 
blessings  which  the  world  has  obtained  through  the 
crucifixion  of  Christ  will  justify  the  Scribes  and  Phar- 
isees for  putting  Him  to  death.  But  whatever  may 
be  said  concerning  Esther's  conduct  in  this  instance, 
the  Jews  rejoiced  in  their  rescue ;  and  it  was  counted 
worthy  of  constant  commemoration.  Hence  Morde- 
cai  and  Esther  were  only  giving  form  to  the  desire 
of  the  people  generally,  in  appointing  a  feast  to  be 
annually  observed  by  them  in  every  place  on  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  days  of  the  month  Adar, 
and  to  be  called  Purim,  or  the  lots,  because  God, 
through  the  disposing  of  the  lot  for  that  far-off  date, 
had  given  time  and  opportunity  for  the  counteract- 
ing of  Haman's  designed  massacre. 


256  ESTHER  THE   QUEEN. 

There  has  been  much  controversy  between  com- 
mentators of  different  ecclesiastical  connections  con- 
cerning this  appointment ;  and  it  has  been  held  by 
many  to  warrant  the  designation  of  special  Church 
festivals,  such  as  are  to  be  found  in  some  of  our 
sister  denominations.  While  others  have  not  hesi- 
tated to  say  that  Mordecai  here  acted  under  divine 
inspiration,  and  that  his  action  is  no  warrant  for 
those  who  are  not  so  endowed.  Bur  the  simple  truth 
is  that  this  designation  of  the  feast  of  Purim  has  no 
bearing  whatever  on  the  question  of  Church  festi- 
vals. I  see  nothing  in  the  history  to  warrant  the 
view  that  Mordecai  was  inspired ;  but  even  if  he 
were,  this  whole  transaction  was  under  the  Old  Test- 
ament dispensation,  and  gives  no  sanction  for  any 
similar  thing  to  be  done  by  any  man  whatever  under 
the  New.  Moreover,  this  was  not  an  ecclesiastical 
appointment  at  all.  It  was  nothing  better  than  a 
national  commemoration,  like  our  own  Fourth  of 
July,  or,  perhaps  better  still,  our  own  Thanksgiving 
Day.  There  was  a  synagogue  service  connected 
with  it,  just  as  there  is  a  religious  service  connect- 
ed with  Thanksgiving ;  but  its  great  features  were 
social  gladness,  and  the  sending  of  gifts  to  the 
poor,  just  as  the  same  things  mark  the  typical 
New  England  Thanksgiving.  But  there  was  no 
sacrifice  appointment  for  it ;  and  it  stands  on 
quite  another  plane  than  the  feasts  of  the  Pass- 
over, Pentecost,  and  Tabernacle.  Even,  however, 
if  it  were  on  a  level  with  them,  that  would  not,  as 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  257 

we  have  seen,  be  any  rule  for  the  New  Testament 
Church. 

It  is  still  observed  by  the  Jews  of  all  lands,  and 
the  services  connected  with  it  are  thus  described  by 
Dr.  Ginsburg,  who,  as  being  himself  a  converted 
Jew,  may  be  regarded  as  a  competent  authority : 
"  The  day  preceding  the  festival — that  is  the  13th 
of  Adar — is  kept  as  a  fast  day,  and  is  called  '  The 
Fast  of  Esther,'  in  accordance  with  the  command  of 
this  Jewish  queen ;  and  sundry  prayers  expressive 
of  repentance,  humiliation,  etc.,  are  introduced  into 
the  regular  ritual  for  the  day.  If  the  13th  of  Adar 
falls  on  a  Sabbath,  the  fast  takes  place  on  the 
Thursday  previous,  as  no  fasting  is  allowed  on  that 
sacred  day  nor  on  the  preparation  day  for  the  Sab- 
bath. On  the  evening  of  this  fast  day— that  is,  the 
13th  of  Adar — the  festival  commences,  when  all  the 
Israelites  resort  to  the  synagogue,  and,  after  the 
evening  service,  the  Book  of  Esther  is  read  by 
the  Praslector.  ...  As  often  as  the  Reader  pro- 
nounces the  name  of  Haman,  the  congregation 
stamp  on  the  floor,  saying,  '  Let  his  name  be  blotted 
out,' '  The  name  of  the  wicked  shall  rot ;'  whilst  the 
children  spring  rattles.  In  the  morning  of  the  14th 
of  Adar  the  Jews  again  resort  to  the  synagogue, 
and  insert  several  appointed  prayers  into  the  ordi- 
nary daily  ritual.  Exodus  xvii.,  8-16,  is  read  as  the 
lesson  from  the  Law,  and  the  Book  of  Esther  as 
the  Haphtara,  under  the  same  circumstances  as  the 
previous  evening.     The  rest  of  the  festival  is  spent 


258  ESTHER   THE    QUEEN. 

in  great  rejoicings  ;  presents  are  sent  backwards 
and  forwards  among  friends,  and  gifts  are  liberally 
forwarded  to  the  poor.  .  .  .  The  rejoicings  continue 
on  the  15th,  and  the  festival  terminates  on  the  even- 
ing of  that  day.  During  the  whole  of  the  festival 
the  Jews  may  engage  in  trade,  or  any  labor,  if  they 
are  so  inclined,  as  there  is  no  prohibition  against 
it.  So  popular  was  it  in  the  days  of  Christ,  that 
Josephus  tells  us  that  '  even  now  all  the  Jews  that 
are  in  the  habitable  earth  keep  these  days  festivals 
and  send  portions  to  one  another,'  and  certainly  its 
popularity  has  not  diminished  in  the  present  day."* 
It  is  regarded  as  the  yearly  Saturnalia  of  the  Jew- 
ish people,  an  occasion  on  which  excesses  in  eating 
and  drinking  were  not  only  overlooked,  but  would 
seem  to  have  received  a  sort  of  sanction  and  en- 
couragement. 

We  are  told  that  the  decree  of  Esther,  confirming 
the  appointment  of  this  feast,  "  was  written  in  the 
book,"  and  some  have  supposed  that  the  reference 
is  to  the  book  of  Esther  itself ;  but  this  can  hardly 
be,  for  the  decree  is  not  given  in  extenso  here,  and 
the  probability,  therefore,  is  that  the  allusion  is  to 
some  public  record,  such,  for  example,  as  the  "  Book 
of  the  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Media  and  Persia." 
As  v/e  saw  in  the  outset  of  our  expositions,  there  is 
nothing  in  this  book  to  indicate  with  any  certainty 
who  its  author  was.     But,  whoever  he  was,  inspira- 

*  Kittos  Cydopccdia.     Edited  by  Alexander.     Art.  Purim. 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  259 

tion  altogether  apart,  he  was  a  literary  artist  of  no 
mean  order,  for  there  are  a  dramatic  life  and  unity 
in  his  production  —  simple  as  its  style  is  —  which 
place  it  in  these  respects  side  by  side  even  with  the 
finest  things  of  its  kind  either  in  sacred  or  profane 
literature.  The  exposure  and  defeat  of  the  plot  of 
Haman  to  massacre  the  Jews  is  the  thread  on  which 
the  whole  is  strung.  Fittingly,  therefore,  it  con- 
cludes with  the  appointment  of  the  feast  for  the 
celebration  of  the  deliverance  of  the  Jews  at  that 
crisis,  and  the  tenth  chapter  is  a  brief  appendix,  de- 
signed to  let  us  know  that  at  the  time  when  the 
record  was  written,  -or  rather,  perhaps,  at  the  date 
when  the  decree  of  Esther  was  finally  established 
and  accepted,  Xerxes  was  still  monarch  of  the  Per- 
sians, a:id  Mordecai  was  next  to  him,  "  and  great 
among  the  Jews,  and  accepted  of  the  multitude, 
seeking  the  wealth  of  his  people,  and  speaking 
peace  to  all  his  seed." 

Now,  in  bringing  this  brief  series  of  discourses  to 
a  close,  we  m.ay  draw  a  lesson  or  two  from  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  Purim  Festival,  which  has  been 
more  immediately  before  us  to-night,  and  then  re- 
vert to  the  one  great  truth  which  the  book  as  a 
whole  so  strikingly  illustrates. 

Looking,  then,  to  the  establishment  of  Purim, 
and  viewing  it  simply  as  a  national  festival,  we  are 
struck,  in  the  first  place,  with  the  historical  value 
of  a  feast  of  this  sort.  We  are  living  now  at  a  date 
between  twenty-three  and  twenty-four  hundred  years 


26o  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

distant  from  that  at  which  the  events  here  recorded 
occurred,  yet  we  can  trace  the  existence  of  that  feast 
all  through  these  years.  The  Book  of  Esther  is 
thus  an  explanation  of  the  feast,  and  the  feast  is  an 
attestation  of  the  book.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  in  its  connection  with  the  Hfe,  death, 
and  resurrection  of  Christ.  This  argument  has 
been  elaborated  by  Leslie  in  his  famous  treatise, 
entitled  "  A  Short  and  Easy  Method  with  Deists," 
and  it  is  too  important  to  be  lost  sight  of;  but  I 
cannot  reproduce  it  now.  Suflfice  it  to  say,  that 
the  rejoicings  which  are  yearly  indulged  in  by  the 
Jewish  residents  of  our  own  city  are,  in  a  very  true 
sense,  attestations  of  the  credibility  of  this  narra- 
tive, while  at  the  same  time,  like  a  float,  they  keep 
the  truth  which  the  book  embodies  from  sinking 
out  of  sight. 

For,  in  the  second  place,  there  is  an  educational 
influence  as  well  as  a  historical  value  in  such  a 
feast.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  all  the  educa- 
tion of  a  child  is  comprised  in  what  he  receives  at 
school.  He  learns  much  in  the  home,  from  the  in- 
fluence and  example  of  his  parents  and  brothers  and 
sisters.  He  is  greatly  affected,  also,  by  what  he 
sees  on  the  streets,  and  especially,  perhaps,  by  the 
statues  which  have  been  erected  in  our  squares 
and  parks  to  the  memory  of  our  great  men.  Dr. 
Andrew  Reed  tells  us  how  profoundly  he  was  moved 
by  the  sight  of  the  statue  of  John  Howard,  in  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral,  London,  and  traces  to  that  the 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  261 

benevolent  purpose  of  his  life,  which  ended  in  the 
establishment  of  so  many  asylums  for  orphans  and 
imbeciles.  So  we  ought  to  be  careful  what  sort  of 
men  those  are  whom  we  allow  to  be  honored  in 
that  way.  For  every  one  who  looks  upon  a  statue 
is  moved  to  ask  "  Whose  is  it  ?  what  was  his  char- 
ter? what  was  his  history?  and  why  has  he  been 
honored  thus  ?"  And  the  answers  will  be  a  part  of 
the  education  of  those  who  put  the  questions,  stir- 
ring their  ambition  and  firing  their  enthusiasm. 
Now,  it  is  the  same  with  national  holidays.  The 
Passover  festival  kept  alive  all  through  Jewish  his- 
tory the  memory  of  the  Exodus ;  and  our  own  In 
dependence  Day  will  evermore  turn  the  attention 
of  our 'children  to  the  Declaration,  the  issuing  of 
which  that  day  commemorates.  The  observance  of 
the  birthday  of  Washington  will  keep  his  memory 
green ;  and  Decoration  Day,  so  long  as  it  lasts,  will 
be  a  memorial  of  the  great  price  given  by  these 
Northern  States  for  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves. 
Now,  in  the  same  way,  Jewish  children  grew  into  the 
knowledge  of  this  interesting  section  of  their  his- 
tory, through  the  observance  of  Purim ;  and  so  a 
book  which  else  might  have  fallen  into  obscurity 
among  them  has  been  kept  in  continual  prominence 
before  their  minds.  It  was  wise,  therefore,  for  Mor- 
decai  and  Esther  to  institute  this  feast;  and  they 
who  are  in  public  place  as  teachers  of  the  people, 
ought  to  make  our  national  festivals  a  means  of 
furthering  the  education  of  the  young. 


262  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

But  now,  turning  from  the  special  topic  of  the 
evening  to  the  book  as  a  whole,  I  think  you  will  be 
prepared  to  assent  to  my  words  when  I  say  that  it 
is  a  beautiful  and  striking  illustration  of  the  truth 
that  God  is  in  history.  I  do  not  know  another  nar- 
rative, unless  it  be  the  history  of  Joseph,  which  so 
impresses  that  fact  upon  the  mind  of  the  reader. 
It  was  not  needful  that  the  name  of  God  should  be 
introduced  into  it,  because  His  hand  is  everywhere 
so  manifest  throughout  it.  But  lest  I  should  lose 
myself  in  vague  generalities  here,  let  me  specify  the 
things  concerning  the  providence  of  God  which  in 
this  book  are  especially  conspicuous.  There  is, 
first,  its  universality.  It  extends  over  all  events  in 
nature,  and  all  actions  of  men.  What,  for  example, 
could  well  be  more  trivial  in  itself  than  that  a  king 
should  go  past  his  sleep  ;  and  yet  we  saw  how  the 
occurrence  of  an  experience  of  that  kind  led,  along 
with  other  things  equally  minute,  to  very  important 
results.  There  is  nothing  so  small  as  to  be  beneath 
God's  care,  or  so  great  as  to  be  above  His  control. 
The  very  hairs  of  our  heads  are  numbered,  and  a 
sparrow  cannot  fall  to  the  ground  without  our  Fa- 
ther. Nor  let  any  one  imagine  that  God's  provi- 
dence is  only  over  what  is  recorded  in  the  Script- 
ures. These  narratives  are  given  us  simply  as 
specimens  of  the  providence  which  is  over  our- 
selves. God  is  as  really  working  in  and  through 
the  events  of  our  lives  as  He  was  in  and  through 
those  of  the  lives  of  Esther  and  Mordecai.     The 


ESTHER   THE   QUEEN.  263 

little  things  as  well  as  the  great  things,  the  rough 
things  as  well  as  the  smooth  things,  the  bitter 
things  as  well  as  the  sweet  things — all  are  beneath 
the  control  of  him  who  doeth  "all  things  well." 

Then,  in  the  second  place,  this  providence  does 
not  interfere  with  the  liberty  of  the  agents  through 
whom  its  purposes  are  wrought.  It  is,  in  fact,  as 
really  and  perhaps  as  often  wrought  out  through 
the  actions  of  evil  men  as  through  the  deeds  of  the 
holy.  Xerxes  here,  though  he  was  a  selfish,  sen- 
sual, indolent,  and  unscrupulous  man,  v/as  an  agent 
in  God's  hand  for  the  working  out  of  His  will ;  and 
even  Haman  was  brought  unwittingly  to  minister  to 
the  honoring  of  Mordecai.  How  all  this  is  accom- 
plished cannot  be  known  without  omniscience  ;  but 
that  it  is  accomplished  is  clearly  illustrated  in  this 
book,  and  manifest  to  all  who  are  intelligent  read- 
ers of  the  history  of  the  past,  or  accurate  observers 
of  the  occurrences  of  the  present.  Therefore  we 
may  join  the  Psalmist  in  his  assurance :  "  Surely 
the  wrath  of  man  shall  praise  thee :  the  remainder 
of  wrath  shalt  thou  restrain."* 

Then,  finally,  through  this  universal  providence, 
God  works  out  His  special  purpose  for  the  good  of 
His  own  people.  The  safety  of  His  covenant  peo- 
ple was  here  at  stake — nay,  the  very  fulfilment  of 
His  Messianic  promises  was  here  imperilled.  If 
Haman  had  accomplished  his  purpose  in  securing 

*  Psalms  Ixxvi.,  10. 


264  ESTHER   THE   QUEEN. 

the  absolute  extinction  of  the  Jews,  then  there 
would  have  been  no  Christ  any  more  than  there 
would  have  been  if  Herod  had  been  able  to  include 
Jesus  in  the  massacre  of  the  Bethlehem  infants. 
But,  through  His  ordinary  providence,  God  accom- 
plished the  special  object  of  His  people's  deliver- 
ance ;  and  this  enables  us  to  understand  what  Paul 
means  when,  in  regard  to  Christ,  he  says  that  He  is 
"head  over  all  things  to  his  church."  God  is  in 
and  over  all  events,  that  He  may  make  all  things 
work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love  Him.  Oh, 
what  a  comfort  that  is  to  those  who  are  "  the  chil- 
dren of  God  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ."  This  is,  in- 
deed, the  great  lesson  of  the  Book  of  Esther.  God 
is  on  the  side  of  His  people,  and  sooner  or  later 
their  enemies  will  be  put  to  confusion.  Let  us  see 
to  it,  therefore,  that  we  are  on  God's  side,  and  then 
no  weapon  that  is  formed  against  us  shall  prosper 
and  every  tongue  that  shall  rise  against  us  in  judg 
ment  He  shall  condemn ;  for  "  this  is  the  heritage^ 
of  the  servants  of  the  Lord,  and  their  righteousness 
is  of  me,  saith  the  Lord." 


INDEX, 


AhASUERUS,  identified  with 
Xerxes,  103,  144  ;  feast  of, 
115  ;  intemperance  of,  120; 
rage  of,  at  Vashti's  refusal 
to  appear  at  the  feast,  122  ; 
decree  of,  that  every  man 
should  bear  rule  in  his  own 
house,  123;  maiden  tribute 
ordered  by,  138;  plot  against 
the  life  of,  141,  201;  invited 
to  Esther's  banquet,  185  ; 
tyranny  of  government  of, 
222. 

Amiability  different  from  de- 
votion, 34. 

Amot,  Rev.  William,  quoted, 
45. 

"  Barefoot," or  "Ba resole," 
meaning  of,  87. 

Bethlehem,  home  of  Elime- 
lech,  7,  9  ;  famine  in,  9  ; 
field  of,  38. 

Bibliotheca  Sacra  quoted,  107- 
III,  158,  234. 

Boaz,  visit  of,  to  his  reapers, 
41  ;  greeting  between  him 
and  them,  43,  45  ;  kindness 
of,  to  Ruth,  47,  70  ;  deli- 
cateness  in  kindness  of,  43 ; 
kinsman  of  Elimelech,  61, 
64;  at  the  threshing-floor, 
69;  at  the  gate  of  the  city, 
79;  marriage  of,  to  Ruth, 
88. 

Braden,  Rev.  William,  The 


Beautiful  Gleaner,  by, 

quoted,  75. 
Brothers  at  home,  duties  of, 

73. 
Byron  quoted,  125. 

Captivities,  Eastern,  134. 

Carstares,  Rev.  William,  inci- 
dent in  the  life  of,  235. 

Cassell,  Rev.  Dr. ,  in  Lange's 
Commentary,  quoted,  20, 
62,  84,  89. 

Caveat  emptor  an  evil  maxim, 
31- 

Character,  revealed  by  change 
of  circumstances,  49;  value 
of,  77;  tested  by  opportu- 
nity and  by  sudden  eleva- 
tion, 176;  a  growth,  177. 

Church,  wrong  motives  for 
joining  the,  247. 

Citizens,  happiness  of  the,  de- 
pends on  character  of  rulers, 
244. 

City,  gate  of  the,  79 ;  govern- 
ment of  the,  St. 

Commonest  gifts  of  God,  val- 
ue of  the,  212. 

Commonplace  in  life,  impor- 
tance of  the,  181. 

Contrast  between  heathenism 
and  Christianity,  149;  be- 
tween earthly  kings  and  the 
King  of  kings,  174. 

Cox,  Rev.  Samuel,  quoted,  5, 
87,  89. 


266 


Crises,  how  to  meet  them,  190. 
Cunningham,    John,    D.D., 

Church  History  of  Scotland, 

by,  quoted,  237. 

Decision  of  character,  value 

of,  33- 
Devotion  distinguished  from 

amiability,  34. 
Dieulafoy,  Monsieur,  quoted, 

107-111,  158,  233. 

Elimelech,  household  of,  6 ; 
house  of,     ;  death  of,  14. 

Emigration  a  means  of  relief 
for  over-crowded  countries, 
12  ;  Thomas  Fuller  on,  13. 

Employers  and  employed,  re- 
lation of,  to  each  other,  53 ; 
the  true  means  of  reconcil- 
ing, 54,  55- 

Esther,  relation  of,  to  INIorde- 
cai,  136;  received  into  Mor- 
decai's  house,  137;  taken  to 
the  royal  harem,  138 ;  love 
of,  to  Mordecai,  141;  effect 
of  Mordecai's  grief  upon, 
170;  answer  of,  to  Morde- 
cai's message,  171;  expost- 
ulation of  Mordecai  with, 
171;  resolution  of,  172; 
preparation  of,  to  appear 
before  the  King,  183;  recep- 
tion of,  by  the  King,  184; 
first  banquet  of,  185;  sec- 
ond banquet  of,  216;  re- 
quest of,  to  the  King,  217; 
seeks  to  neutralize  Haman's 
decree,  231;  asks  an  exten- 
sion of  time  for  Jews'  de- 
fence, 253  ;  apparent  vin- 
dictiveness  of,  254. 

Esther,  the  Book  of,  97 ;  ob- 
jections to  canonicity  of, 
93 ;  date  of  incidents  in, 
loi  ;   authorship  of,  no; 


dramatic  unity  of,  259  ; 
great  lesson  of,  262. 

Franklin,   Dr.   Benjamin, 

alleged  story  of,  and  the 

Book  of  Ruth,  I. 
Frankness,  duty  of,  in  dealing 

with  others,  30. 
Fretting,  evil  of,  211. 
Fuller,  Thomas,  Commentary 

on  Ruth  quoted,  13. 

Gate  of  the  city,  79. 
Ginsburg,   Rev.   Dr.,  quoted, 

257-. 
Gleaning,   ordinances"  of    the 

Mosaic  law  regarding,  39. 
"  Goel,"  duties  of  the,  64,  82. 
Gough,  J.  B.,  last  words  of, 

242. 

Haman,  the  Agagite,  151  ; 
unacknowledged  by  Morde- 
cai, 152;  plot  of,  to  destroy 
the  Jews,  155  ;  decree  is- 
sued by,  160;  effect  of  de- 
cree of,  upon  the  people  at 
large,  16S ;  and  on  Morde- 
cai, 169;  invited  to  Esther's 
banquet,  185  ;  haughtiness 
of,  1S8;  advice  of  Zeresh 
to,  190,  205;  made  to  min- 
ister to  Mordecai's  honor, 
202  ;  invited  to  Esther's 
second  banquet,  2x6 ;  ac- 
cused by  Esther,  220;  con- 
demnation and  execution 
of,  221. 

Hand  of  God  to  be  recognized 
in  everything,  27 ;  this  an 
antidote  to  pride  in  prosper- 
ity, 28  ;  and  to  despondency 
in  adversity,  29. 

Henry,  Matthew,  quoted,  113. 

Herodotus,  Littlebury's,  re- 
ferred to  or  quoted,  104, 116. 


26; 


Hervey.Lord  Arthur,  referred 
to,  6. 

Hetherington's  History  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland itierrzA 
to,  237. 

Home,  essence  of,  in  persons, 
18. 

Honesty  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  in  dealing  with  men 
as  to  discipleship,  32. 

Household  government  not 
absolute,  122. 

Huguenots,  folly  of  banish- 
ment of,  219. 

Husbands,  rule  of,  in  home 
limited,  121. 

Intemperance,  evils  of,  127; 
how  to  deal  with  them,  as 
it  regards  the  drunkard, 
128;  as  it  regards  the  drink- 
ing customs  of  society,  129 ; 
and  as  it  regards  the  liquor 
traffic,  130. 

Jews,   condition   of,    in    the 

time  of  Xerxes,  105. 
Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  referred 

to,  2. 
Judges,  days  of  the,  5. 

Keil,  on  Esther,  quoted, 
153- 

King,  Rev.  David,  LL.D., 
story  told  by,  147. 

Kinsman,  or  Goel,  meaning 
of,  42. 

Kitto,  Rev.  John,  Daily  Bible 
Illustrations,  quoted,  67, 
123;  Cyclopcedia,  edited  by 
Ale.xander,  quoted,  25S. 

Levirate  law,  the,  19,20,  65, 
83,  85. 

Life,  changes  in,  16;  impor- 
tance of  the  commonplace 


in,  181 ;  the  irreversible  in, 

240. 
Lot,  casting  of  the,  158. 
Lowell    Hebrew    Club,    The 

Book  of  Esther,  by,  quoted, 

103,  107. 

Mahlon  and  Chilion,  mar- 
riage of,  to  Ruth  and  Or- 
pah,  14;  death  of,  15. 

Marriage,  Levirate,  ig,  20, 
65,  83,  85;  true  ideal  of,  75, 
149;  evil  of  clandestine,  92, 

McCrie,  Rev.  Thomas,  D.D., 
Lectures  on  Esther,  quoted, 
127. 

"Megillah,"  "  Megilloth," 
97- 

Moabite  Stone,  the,  40. 

Moab,  land  of,  9. 

Mordecai,  lineage  of,  136;  po- 
sition of,  at  Persian  Court, 
136;  kindness  of,  to  Esther,  . 
137,  141,  145;  detects  a  plot 
to  murder  the  King,  141, 
201  ;  displeases  Haman, 
151 ;  reasons  of,  for  not  sa- 
luting Haman,  152;  effect 
of  Haman's  decree  on,  169; 
message  of,  to  Esther,  170; 
expostulation  of,  \vith  Es- 
ther, 171;  honored  by  the 
King,  202 ;  introduced  into 
the  palace  by  Esther,  221; 
exalted  to  Haman's  place, 
222  ;  edict  issued  by,  238  ; 
effect  of,  on  the  Jews,  250. 

Mormonism,  140. 

Naomi,  trials  of,  14;  return 
of,  to  Bethlehem,  iS;  treat- 
ment of,  by  her  daughters- 
in-law,  19;  expostulation 
of,  with  Orpah  and  Ruth, 
20;  arrival  of,  at  Bethlehem, 
24;   reception  of,  by  Beth- 


268 


lehemites,  26  ;  encourages 
Ruth  to  glean  in  the  field, 
36 ;  reception  of  Ruth  by, 
after  gleaning,  60 ;  plan  of, 
for  Ruth's  permanent  set- 
tlement, 63;  tenderness  of, 
to  Obed,  89. 

Night,  a  sleepless,  199. 

No,  the  art  of  saying,  163. 

Orpah  returns  to  Moab,  22. 

Orphans,  kindness  to,  en- 
forced, 146 ;  and  exempli- 
fied, 147. 

Palace  of  Shushan,  ground- 
plan  of,  io3. 

Parched  corn,  47. 

Parents,  duties  of,  to  grown- 
up sons  and  daughters,  74. 

Passions,  the,  all  near  of  kin, 
165. 

Past,  the,  cannot  be  reversed, 
240. 

Posts  of  Persia,  160,  239.    • 

Prayer,  why  no  mention  of  by 
Esther,  172. 

Pride  a  root  of  evil,  164 ; 
counteracted  by  a  sense  of 
responsibility,  166. 

Principle,  fidelity  to,  exempli- 
fied, 161. 

Proctor,  Miss  A.  A., quoted,  25. 

Providence,  minuteness  of, 
42,  206  ;  illustrations  of, 
207  ;  carried  on  without 
miracles,  20S  ;  retribution 
an  element  in,  226. 

Purim,  meaning  of  the  word, 
158 ;  feast  of,  256 ;  mode  of 
celebrating,  257;  historical 
value  of,  259 ;  educational 
influence  of,  260. 

Raleigh,  Rev.  Alexander, 
D.D,,  quoted,  119,  197. 


Rawlinson,  Canon,  quoted, 
III,  112. 

Rawlinson,  George,  Five 
Great  Monarchies,  by,  quot- 
ed, 233. 

Robinson,  Rev.  Edward, 
D.D. ,  Biblical  Researches, 
quoted,  48,  68. 

Ruth,  marriage  of,  to  Mahlon, 
14;  sets  out  with  Naomi  to 
Bethlehem,  18;  refuses  to 
return  to  Moab,  22  ;  goes 
to  glean  in  the  field  of 
Boaz,  36;  visits  the  thresh- 
ing-floor of  Boaz,  63;  mar- 
riage of,  to  Boaz,  89. 

Ruth,  the  Book  of,  described, 
I  ;  story  of  Dr.  Franklin 
and,  i;  date  of,  3;  date  of 
incidents  recorded  in,  5  ; 
authorship  of,  5. 

Self-sacrifice  is  self-serv- 
ing. 93- 

Slinshan,  situation  of,  106; 
modern  excavations  at,  by 
Williams  and  Loftus,  106; 
by  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Dieulafoy,  106  ;  palace  of, 
107;  perplexed  by  Haman's 
decree,  161. 

Sisters,  duties  of,  to  brothers,  , 
73- 

Smith's  Dictionary  of  the  Bi- 
ble quoted  from,  10,  11. 

Smith,  Sidney,  quoted,  163. 

Storrs,  Rev.  R.  S.,  D.D., 
LL.D.,  The  Divine  Origin 
of  Christianity,  quoted, 
132. 

Tholuck's  Hours  of  Chris- 
tian Devotion  quoted,  47, 

79- 
Thomson,   Rev.  Dr.  W.  M., 
quoted,  47,  79. 


269 


Threshing-floor,  the,  67-69. 

Trouble  not  kept  away  by  ex- 
cluding the  signs  of  sad- 
ness, 173. 

Value  of  decision  of  charac- 
ter, 38  ;  of  a  good  charac- 
ter, 77  ;  of  God's  common- 
est gifts,  212. 

Vashti  summoned  to  the  royal 
feast,  121  ;  refusal  of,  to 
appear  at  the  feast,  121;  to 
be  honored  for  her  con- 
duct, 122. 

Victoria,  Queen,  anecdote  of, 
118, 

Wakefulness,    causes   of, 

200:  true  cure  of,  213. 
Woman,  position  of,  as  afTect- 


ed  by  the  gospel,  131;  the 
best  counsellor,  or  the 
worst,  197. 

Xerxes  identified  with  Ahas- 
uerus,  103,  143 ;  character 
of,  104;  feast  of,  115;  in- 
temperance of,  120;  rage  of, 
at  Vashti's  refusal  to  appear 
at  the  feast,  122;  foolish 
edict  of,  123;  maiden  trib- 
ute ordered  by,  138;  plot 
against  the  life  of,  141,  201; 
invited  to  Esther's  banquet, 
185;  tyrannical  government 
of,  222. 

Zeresh,  advice  of,  to  Haman, 
190;  a  beacon  to  all  wedded 
wives,  198. 


THE  LAND  AND  THE  BOOK. 


The  Land  and  the  Boole;  or,  Biblical  Illustrations  drawn  from 
the  Manners  and  Customs,  the  Scenes  and  Scenery,  of  the 
Holy  Land.  By  William  M.  Thomson,  D.D.,  Forty-five 
Years  a  Missionary  in  Syria  and  Palestine.  In  Three 
Volumes,  8vo.  Price  per  volume  :  Cloth,  $6  00  ;  Sheep, 
$7  00 ;  Half  Morocco  or  Half  Calf,  68  50 ;  Full  Morocco, 
6lO  00.  (Volumes  sold  separately.) 
Popular  Edition  in  Three  Volumes,  Svo,  Illuminated  Cloth, 
$9  00.  {The  Popular  Edition  sold  only  in  sets.) 
L  SOUTHERN    PALESTINE     AND    JERUSALEM. 

140  Illustrations  and  Maps. 
IL  CENTRAL  PALESTINE  AND  PHCENICIA.     130 

Illustrations  and  Maps. 
III.  LEBANON,  DAMASCUS,  AND    BEYOND    JOR- 
DAN.    147  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

Students  of  the  daily  life,  the  personal  and  geographical  euvironmcnts 
of  Jesus  and  his  disciples,  will  find  the  work  iiivaluable. — A''.  Y.  Herald. 

His  work  is  more  than  a  mere  geographical  description  of  Palestine, 
though  he  has  given  much  attention  to  that  department;  or  a  mere 
delineation  of  Eastern  manners,  though  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  any- 
where else  so  graphic  and  accurate  a  portraiture  of  the  daily  life  of 
the  Orientals. —  Christian  at  Work,  N.  Y. 

For  the  preaclier,  the  Sunday-school  teacher,  every  Bible  student  and 
Christian  home,  the  work  will  prove  a  rare  treasure.  There  is  no  work 
that  can  come  even  near  taking  its  place. —  Chi-isiian  Advocate,  N.  Y. 

Dr.  Tliomson  has  studied  the  field  with  painstaking  care;  and  studying 
in  the  liglit  of  the  Bible  narrative,  he  has  collected  a  store  of  detailed 
and  general  knowledge  such  as  can  be  found  in  no  other  existing  work. — 
Boston  I'raveller. 

The  information  which  may  be  derived  from  Dr.  Thomson's  careful  and 
authentic  descriptions  of  the  manners  and  customs,  the  natural  products 
and  common  sights,  of  the  Holy  Land  is  fresh  and  true,  and  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  works  of  other  writers,  who  have  not,  as  a  rule,  possessed 
the  advantages,  the  scholarship,  or  the  Biblical  knowledge  of  this  veteran 
authority. — Athenccnm,  London. 


Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  Yonic. 

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JESUS  CHRIST  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

JESUS  CHRIST  IX  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT;  or,  The 
Great  Argument.  By  W.  H.  Thomson,  M.A.,  M.D.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Materia  Medica  and  Therapeutics,  Medical  Depart- 
ment University  of  New  York.  Pages  viii.,  472.  Crown 
8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00.    

The  book  is  worthy  in  erery  way  of  careful  reading,  and  we  trust  it 
will  do  much  to  confirm  the  faith  of  wavering  Christians,  and  show  the 
"internal  critics"  that  men  outside  the  pulpit  see  the  folly  of  their  as- 
saults on  God's  Word  just  as  plainly  as  those  who  preach  the  whole 
Bible's  simple  truth  to  sinners.— Chrisiian  InteUiffencer,'N.Y. 

The  argument  of  the  author  is  masterly,  grand,  unanswerable.  It  should 
be  carefully  studied  by  all  who  wish  to  liave  an  intelligent  understanding 
of  the  fundamental  truths  of  the  Word  of  God. — Interior,  Chicago. 

Dr.  Thomson's  special  qualifications  for  the  task  lie  in  his  familiarity 
with  Oriental,  Arabic,  and  Jewish  habits  of  thought  and  expression,  and 
with  the  scenery  and  modes  of  life  of  those  lands  where  the  Bible  writings 
originated,  while  his  own  scientific  training  fits  liim  for  exactness  of  reason- 
ing°  His  argument  brings  out  very  clearly  the  remarkable  special  fulfil- 
ments of  the  prophecies  of  Christ  in  the, Old  Testament,  but  he  does  not 
lay  great  stress  on  them,  for  the  wise  reason  that  such  a  series  of  fulfil- 
ments would  not  alone  carry  conviction.  He  finds  a  higher  and  more 
philosophical  ground  in  the  remarkable  unlikeness  of  the  prophecies  to  the 
human  opinions  and  ideals  of  the  time,  and  to  tiieir  unmistakable  conform- 
ity to  the  intent  of  the  Christian  Gospel  itself. — JV.  Y.  Times. 

A  book  which  can  be  recommended  to  the  thoughtful  students  of  the 
life  of  our  Lord  as  related  to  Old  Testament  prophecy.  It  is  fresh,  stimu- 
lating, and  eminently  readable.  Dr.  Thomson's  style  is  stirring  and  ag- 
gressive.— Sunday  School  7'imcs,  Philadelphia. 

In  respect  to  both  the  fulness  of  the  proofs  adduced  and  to  the  forms 
in  which  they  are  presented,  it  excels  any  that  we  have  seen  elsewhere. — 
Methodist  Quarterly  Review,  N.  Y. 

We  have  read  this  book  from  beginning  to  end.  In  fact  it  goes  with- 
out saying  that  this  is  so  to  any  reader  who  will  get  ten  pages  into  it.  It 
is  impossible  to  lay  it  down.  .  .  .  It  is  so  clear,  so  connected,  so  cogent  in 
its  reasoning,  that  one  feels  the  same  delight  as  in  listening  to  a  great 
advocate  arguing  a  point  of  law  before  able  judges.  .  .  .  We  commend 
this  book  tcTallour  readers,  and  more  especially  to  the  clergy.— C/mrc/j- 
man,  N.  Y.  .         ^ 

The  work  is  scholarly  and  thoughtful,  and  will  broaden  the  view  of 
Christianity  and  strengthen  its  claims.  Biblical  literature  by  it  has  gained 
another  work  of  needed  spirit  and  character. — Boston  Globe. 


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